Episode 12 - Werewolves

You sit quietly. The porch looks out over the pasture.

And the pasture is quiet. It usually is. Beyond it, there are the trees and the edge of the forest.

The forest is quiet in the way forests are. A thousand small sounds. The same as always.

Nights like these, peaceful nights, they were always your favorite. Time to sit and think. Time to listen and look.

Your herd wanders freely in the field. It’s a modest herd, not the largest in the area, but certainly not the smallest.

A sound interrupts your musing, a cry of some kind, out in the woods. There is a long silence following the call, before the woods resume their quiet sound.

Probably nothing. The woods have never troubled you or yours before.

Although the stories about it are less than pleasant.

A howl in the night, slaughtered livestock. A curse, or a spell, or a blessing.

The woods contain dark tales and creatures that haunt the old stories. People wander into those trees, and they come back changed. They come back not as people, but as wolves.

Werewolves began appearing in the stories of Europe primarily during the medieval period. Shapeshifters and their like have been a part of folk lore for centuries.

Whether their change is the result of a curse, or a willful shift caused by the werewolf themself is different tale to tale.

Sometimes referred to as lycanthropes, werewolves are people with the ability to change into a wolf. In more modern stories, rather than wolves, they become hybrid monsters - half-man and half-wolf.

In Europe at large, werewolves were often accused and put on trial in much the same way witches were, and the practice emerged in the early 15th century. They spread throughout Europe to peak in the 17th century. By the end of the 18th century the trials had mostly disappeared.

But werewolves remain in folklore and story.

There are few creatures in folklore more prevalent in the modern day than werewolves. They fill movies and television shows and books.

They have roles in horror, and fantasy, and romance stories, finding a part to play in all manner of tales.

There are many shapechangers in story and myth, but few have reached the status that werewolves hold today.

So I invite you to join me as I head into the darkest woods, where the creatures of the night dwell. To see where people become wolves and howl in the night.

I am Andrew Eagle, and now I go Through the Veil.

It has been several days since the first attack.

You found the animal dead, ripped apart. Its heart, and some other organs eaten, the rest simply… assaulted.

Of course, it was a wolf. It had to be. This sort of thing was a terrible reality of life near the forest.

The animal would have to be dealt with of course. But that was a task for the village. The other farmers and ranchers would help.

Your hands will deal with the body. You ride to your neighbors.

You find, to your surprise. To your horror. Your fields are not the only ones that suffered.

Across the farms and ranches you visit, dozens of animals dead in a single night. Nothing like this has happened in this village in living memory.

As the town gathers, and more stories come in, it becomes clear. These were not ordinary wolf attacks.

This much malice could only exist in a supernatural creature, a beast of dark magic…

These were the work of werewolves.

The word werewolf first appeared in the fifteen century. But the stories are far older than that.

Old Norse myth had stories of varulfur. Although similar creatures were referred to as ulfheoinn, or ‘one in wolf-skin.’

In those myths, the terms referred more to the adoption of wolf-like traits, rather than actual shape-shifting.

But over time, they began to change. The term started referring to more. And those creatures, those stories, needed a cause.

Many stories involve a curse, either from a god, a witch, or some other source. A person forced to change from human to beast as punishment. Then it became associated with witchcraft more directly, and rather than punishment it became a choice.

People were attributed with the power or spellwork to become wolves. To gain the strength and speed of the beast. They began to be feared.

In some stories, it was said that drinking from the pawprint of a wolf or werewolf would turn you into the same.

But around the sixteen hundreds, as werewolf stories grew more popular, the most common story of a werewolf origin began circulating.

Those bitten by such a creature were doomed to become one.

Werewolves. Here.

Unbelievable it seemed, but true. Nothing else was so vicious without purpose.

You and the rest of the farmers made a plan. It was obvious the creature had to die. But first, it must be found out. Who could be such a terrible thing.

The hunt must happen. You would take shifts, the other ranchers and you, round the clock at the various farm-holds and pastures. One of you would see the beast. And with it seen, it would be found.

You would find it, and you all would save your town.

Werewolves have gone through many forms throughout the ages.

People who could become wolves, horrifying creatures somewhere between the two.

While they were not always called such, it makes sense that werewolves could so easily be a villain to medieval Europe.

Wolf attacks on people were rare, but did occur. And certainly they were a terror upon those with livestock.

Then the traits that made werewolves frightening were the same things that made ordinary wolves frightening to the people of Europe.

They struck mostly at night, working in the dark. They struck with fervor and hunger, killing indiscriminately, leaving behind most of the victim. Only claiming the heart, or sometimes other organs.

Werewolves could be identified in several ways, although the variants on such identification vary widely from region to region.

From finger-length to unibrows, there were so many different traits that were displayed by werewolves that it seems nearly impossible to avoid all of them.

It takes days. Weeks. But finally, someone catches a glimpse of it. The one responsible for the killings.

The creature was a wolf of massive scale. Nearly twice the size of a normal wolf. It had to be the werewolf, the shape-shifter.

Once it was seen, it was tracked to one of the ranches after its nightly hunt. The wolf is one of the hands there.

A man who works for your neighbor.

With the knowledge in hand, you and your neighbors gather a group of people. You make a plan to capture the shape-shifter, and prevent him from hurting anyone else.

Werewolf trials were events that started originally alongside witch trials.

During the Valais witch trials, one of the earliest trials in the early fifteen-century, there was at least one accusation of lycanthropy.

In the Vaud, a region of Switzerland, an accusation was leveled against someone that claimed they were a werewolf and had cannibalized children during 1448.

The rates of accusations, trials, and convictions increased around Europe throughout the fifteen and sixteen hundreds. There were a fair share in Switzerland, France, England, and Germany.

Slowly, over time, treatises were written that claimed lycanthropy was more illusion than truth, and accusations diminished.

Looking back, it has been suggested that some claims of werewolves were a consequence of serial killings. The most famous example is probably Peter Stumpp, who was executed in 1589 in Germany.

Stumpp was an alleged cannibal and serial killer who became known as the Werewolf of Bedburg.

Eventually, during the eighteenth century, werewolf trials dwindled and faded into history.

You gather with the other farmers and ranchers. A team of a dozen, maybe more, with one purpose.

To capture the werewolf and bring the monster to trial.

You know, you cannot give the man time to shed his skin. If he becomes a wolf, he will be far harder to trap and far more dangerous.

Which means, when it is time, you will have to move fast. You ride out to the ranch where he works. You have irons, and weapons.

You go into the bunkhouse where the ranch-hands stayed, and you wait. The other hands, when they arrive, are turned away in turn. They are told to wait elsewhere.

Finally, the accused appears. As he walks in the door, two from your group jump forward and grasp onto him.

He fights, but the fight is brief. He is outnumbered. And quickly, he is lead away in irons. To be tried. For justice, such as it is.

The werewolf is a creature that has fascinated us for centuries.

It seems that across time and the world, we still have not decided if lycanthropy is a gift or a curse.

A power that we seek, or an affliction laid upon us.

Shape-shifters are particularly prolific in folklore because they can hide among us.

Werewolves aren’t scary because they can become a wolf. No… They scare us because they can become a person.

In an instant, in a moment, they can be your neighbor, or your friends. The beast may lie within anyone, from within your own home to a stranger passed in the street.

Some cultures saw werewolves as noble and powerful, adopting the best qualities of beasts to bolster themselves in combat. Others saw blood-soaked monsters, cannibalistic creatures that were more hungry than anything.

The truth, such as it is, is probably somewhere in the middle.

I hope that you’ve enjoyed this episode, and I hope that you choose to subscribe to Through the Veil to hear new episodes weekly on whatever platform you so choose.

Each week we will continue our exploration of folklore, myth, and monsters.

Feel free to email me at throughtheveilpodcast@gmail.com or reach out on Twitter. You can find me @ThroughVeil

If there are subjects you would like to hear covered, do not hesitate to reach out.

And as always, thank you, for listening.