Cursed Creatures: Werewolves Part I - Ep. 23

In Part 1 of our Cursed Creatures deep dive, Cursed...ish heads into the woods under a full moon to ask a deceptively simple question: where did werewolf legends actually come from?

Before silver bullets, full moons, and shirtless men chaining themselves to basement pipes, werewolves were already prowling through ancient mythology, folklore, and some deeply cursed corners of human history. Daniel and Angela trace lycanthropy back to the Old English roots of “werewolf,” the Greek origins of “lycanthrope,” and one of the earliest Western werewolf stories: King Lycaon, the mythological ruler cursed by Zeus to become a wolf after committing a dinner-party crime so horrifying it should have voided his hosting privileges forever.

From there, we follow the wolf trail through the Epic of Gilgamesh, Norse wolf-warriors, medieval fear, and the terrifying reality of European werewolf trials. Along the way, we meet Peter Stumpp, the infamous Werewolf of Bedburg, whose story may be part murder trial, part scapegoat panic, and part tabloid nightmare. We also meet Old Thiess, the self-proclaimed “hound of God” who insisted the court had werewolves all wrong.

So are werewolves cursed monsters, misunderstood victims, or just another story humans invented to explain the darkness in ourselves?

Maybe cursed. Maybe not. Definitely hairy.

Questions, comments, or your own accursed tales to share? Send us a hex at uhoh@cursedish.com.

The hosts of Cursed...ish are not responsible for any misfortunes that may befall you while listening to this podcast. By listening to Cursed...ish, you assume all risk of bad luck, ill omens, and unexplained catastrophes.

*Terms and conditions may be upheld by unknown forces.

Transcript

Daniel 0:00

So, this idea of being turned into a wolf as punishment goes back to like the core of human beginnings.

Angela 0:05

And also toxic relationships go back to the very beginning.

Daniel 0:09

I know, I know. Welcome, accursed ones, to Cursed Ish, the podcast that cheerfully welcomes the full moon shining a light on the weird and mysterious corners of our world, then immediately regrets it when something in the still dark shadows starts howling back. I'm Daniel Stevens.

Angela 0:36

And I'm Angela Mattis.

Daniel 0:37

So, Angela, to start today's episode, I'm just gonna ask you a classic question. Did you have any cursed events happen to you this week?

Angela 0:44

Have I been cursed at all this last week? I feel like all of my curses are so lame because it's all related to the plane travel that I do. Like if you fly a lot, like then your life does feel a bit cursed because you, I mean, I get delayed a lot. Like I got delayed like by four hours this last week. I was supposed to get home at 6 30 p.m. and I rolled through the door at 11. Um, you know what is the you know what's a niche plane curse though? Um when the airport is like really busy and they have to push you to an international terminal for the gate, and like you will walk, not joking, a mile to get back to the regular terminals. And this happened to me last week where I like had had the perfect flight, like I got upgraded to first class, and it was a long enough flight that like we got a meal and it was like a whole service, and I was like, Oh, I'm just like living alive. I'm blessed. And then they were like, or we're gonna be uh boarding or we're gonna be landing and going to an international gate because right now, you know, the airport is really busy, and I and it all just went to hell, and then I literally walked for half an hour just to get to the see.

Daniel 1:55

To me, you say that I hate when I get to an airport and there's like I I don't care how far where I have to fight to get to the other side of it. I hate airports that don't let you walk. They make you take a tram or a train or something, and I'm like, just let me walk. I don't want to wait here and cram onto this. And like once we landed at the Denver airport late at night and the whole train system was broken and it was just chaos. There were just people shoulder to shoulder everywhere, and I was just like, why can't we all just walk? They've done it to themselves. The the Denver airport cursed whole other story.

Angela 2:23

But I will take a blurst event when they have like the moving sidewalks. Those are there's not enough of those in this world. I love those.

Daniel 2:31

You just like zip along and it's like you do feel like a wizard sometimes when you're just like gliding past everyone.

Angela 2:39

So this is my pseudo-cursed life.

Daniel 2:42

Yeah. Well, I only asked because I was a little on the lookout for some residual bad luck this week. I was a little worried that I was channeling some future bad luck. Yes, mea culpa, if you had any bad luck, but it sounds like you were stretching. You sound like you had a fine week. So just a little fun fact about this episode. So we're recording today, someday in what will be the past, and this will premiere on someday what will be today. Are you following me?

Angela 3:05

Yeah, sure.

Daniel 3:07

I might be overcomplicating this. I've never done that in the past.

Angela 3:11

Yeah, no, never.

Daniel 3:12

But what I'm saying is, so this will premiere on a day that is a full moon.

Angela 3:16

That's literally all you had to say. What was the whole part for? Daniel, it's called the English language. Have you heard of it? Learn it for fuck's sake.

Daniel 3:27

And this obviously was not something that I noticed last second at 4 a.m. while doing research for this episode, and then I looked at the schedule and shuffled things around and made this one land on the day it's gonna land. Absolutely.

Angela 3:38

There's like so many things going on here, Daniel. Like, what hours do you keep, you vampire?

Daniel 3:45

Well, okay, that's a whole other episode, probably. Today we're talking about werewolves, Angela. Like, keep it straight.

unknown 3:50

Oh.

Angela 3:51

Oh, okay, it's all coming full circle.

Daniel 3:55

So we're talking about werewolves this week. So this full moon premiere is something that was obviously foretold centuries in the past. It was meant to be. I know. Well, honestly, when I chose to set this on a full moon, I was like, oh, how perfect werewolves. We'll actually get to it. We're not gonna talk about full moons for a long time to get into this story.

Angela 4:15

That's just a little pre- Honestly, I don't even know where where there's a curse here. So I'm totally coming in this blind of like, I never would have thought about werewolves. I am fully ready for you to school me. Although you don't have a very good track record. So far, English class has been not great. Let's move on to history.

Daniel 4:35

Uh okay, I was just gonna say, let's look at the history then. Where does this story of werewolves come from? You said right there you don't really understand how there's a curse there. The we'll get to the first examples of people who are werewolves. They were pretty much just cursed to turn into a werewolf. But the modern werewolf is a staple of horror and fantasy romance. It's just like one of the most well-known creatures in our culture. It is still a person cursed to transform via bite, maybe via something else, sometimes bloodline, sometimes it's a punishment, sometimes it's an affliction, you know, spread through scratches and bites, sometimes it's a deal with the devil, sometimes it's a secret family curse passed on through your bloodline. Um, sometimes a werewolf is just a vicious real monster that people make up stories about because the truth is too terrifying to deal with. So there's this idea that werewolves at their core is a curse to lose your humanity or to become something ferocious. I mean, your body is your one sacred, that's you. And to have that transformed out from under you is horrifying.

Angela 5:35

Yeah, and as someone who turns into a little little bit of a bitch once a month for her life since teenager years, I think I understand a bit of and which also getting your period is called the curse.

Daniel 5:46

So Yes, yeah. Well, I will have you know I did not try to do any menstruation jokes when it came down to my werewolf research. I will leave that to you.

Angela 5:55

Thank you for your consideration at this delicate time.

Daniel 6:00

You you brought us there. Thank you for mentioning. Um, yes, that that's obviously there's there are things about cycles and transformation and human biology. Uh there's there is stuff here that you can see why people maybe started to tell these stories. By modern times, there's a lot of baggage. Like I said, full moons, silver bullets, hairy-chested men dramatically ripping their shirts off in the forest.

Angela 6:22

Are we gonna talk about sex this episode all the time?

Daniel 6:26

No, no, we probably won't.

Angela 6:28

Oh, it's not gonna be another sexually charged one. Rats.

Daniel 6:33

You know, you have the you're the guide to your own story, but my my my plan is not sexually.

unknown 6:38

Okay.

Daniel 6:39

Well my outline is quite PG 13. Uh, it was not to say there there are some horrifying things that we're gonna discuss, but not really.

Angela 6:47

I'll try to keep it in my pants.

Daniel 6:50

You do your best. Okay, so before we get into all those modern things, let's to springboard ourselves into this lupine mess, let's start looking at the words we use to talk about werewolves. Okay.

Angela 7:02

Okay, so linguistics class, professor.

Daniel 7:05

Yes, yes, yes, yes, we're going to linguistics. You know, I think there's always something so telling about the words we use and how they came from. It really always, to me, is so illustrative of the history. And so actually, when I was doing this research on etymology, there was something I always thought I knew about the history of English language, and I I found out how wrong I was. I had a sweet little sweet summer child moment of myself. Let me explain how I'm an idiot and how it relates to this. So werewolf comes from the old English word were meaning man, and then wolf W-U-L-F, self-explanatory. Um, so like literally man wolf, were wolf, man, wolf. Pretty simple, straightforward, no notes. Like, why am I talking about this even? It's straightforward. So this old English word for man, were, there was a uh complement for it for women called whiff. Also the term with man existed. And with man is where it turned into woman. Already suspicious that it's like, are we defining women based on their wifeness? With did not mean wife. It later turned into wife because then they turned woman to mean woman, and there was this extra word wife that was still around. But there is a lot of times where languages will just use the word woman to mean wife. Spanish does it. It's so like there's, yeah, I mean, the world, the history is sexist and awful. Yeah, it's about to get worse.

Angela 8:22

For anyone listening and not watching, I'm just like mean mug and making faces.

Daniel 8:28

Here's where my little innocence came in. There's this thing you'll see sometimes. People talk about this where meaning man, and then whiff and wiffman, and they'll say that where man, meaning like male man is a word, and that man used to just be gender neutral. I always thought, like, oh, it's not that men just took the word and used it. It was just like a natural evolution of these whiffman, where man, and then women took that, and then where man lost the beginning. Words often just lose stuff. They shorten, they they lose consonants, they you know, turn multiple uh vowels into diphthongs, etc. Turns out none of that is right. There is no recorded history of the word where man ever.

Angela 9:06

Wait, you just were spouting nonsense?

Daniel 9:08

Yeah, yeah, but you will see this like I'll see this on Reddit, I've seen it in like etymology stuff, I'll see it on videos. I've seen this so many places that like there used to be where man with man, and that uh, you know, and that kind of was talked a lot about when it comes to werewolves. Turns out it's not true. Man did used to be gender neutral, and then they just took it and started meaning men only.

Angela 9:26

But like what about the whole whiff situation?

Daniel 9:28

That was just a separate evolution. So like they they started saying I had become a woman then. With whiffman just slowly turned into woman, and the two meanings of with and with man diverged and came to mean two different related, of course. I mean, biologically, they're in the past and everything, yes. But then I found an even worse thing. So I was like, okay, there goes my shattered idea of like English used to be so cool and gender neutral and all that. Then I learned that the word world, that were part of world, is the we're part of man. So world comes from the old English were meaning man and all meaning like age or life of. So like literally they're defining the world as like the age of men. And it's just like, God, it's so it went from like, oh, I thought it was nice, then I realized it was an idiot, then I realized it was even worse than I ever could have imagined. So it's just a whole curse of etymology. Yeah.

Angela 10:18

It's truly just like never never let us astray before that hubris of men.

Daniel 10:23

So anyway, let's get away from this whole where wolf with man situation.

Angela 10:27

Yeah.

Daniel 10:28

Let's look at another word you may have heard for this. Have you ever heard of a lycanthrope or lycanthropy?

Angela 10:33

Yes, I have I have in the uh Harry Potter books.

Daniel 10:36

Oh, yes, yes, yes. So though that's another common word that people use for werewolves. Lycanthropy is such a nice word. Like you can say werewolfism, but that just doesn't have the same random.

Angela 10:45

Okay, well, I'm a Rube because I feel like I was always pronouncing it. It's like one of those books, one of those words that you like only read in books and you never hear said out loud. So I thought it was like lycanthropy or like a lycanthrope. I don't know. I just was like saying it, like I was putting the wrong emphasis on the wrong syllable.

Daniel 11:01

No, I mean I I do believe the noun is lycanthrope. Like this werewolf is also a like he's a lycanthrope.

Angela 11:09

Have I ever said this word out loud before in my life?

Daniel 11:11

I think it's usually just met used in lycanthro lycanthropy, lycanthropy. And I, you know, I think the pronunciations, I mean English vowel pronunciation is a mess. We're American, British people pronounce it differently. Australian, I mean Aluminium, yeah. I will never claim to determine how any word in English should be pronounced.

Angela 11:30

Fair. Does anyone actually know there's no source of truth?

Daniel 11:35

If we want to get into it, no, there's no truth. English does not have a reigning body. Some languages do, French does, Spanish does, kinda wish English, but we don't. So there's no one to say this is right. It is just what people do. So that's the only way you can define what English is, is what we're actually doing with it. It's a whole thing. We could talk about this for ages. Anyway, so lycanthropy comes from the Greek. So that comes from Greek roots. That's lycos meaning wolf and anthropos meaning human, which is actually gender neutral. So the Greeks doing it right.

Angela 12:01

And that's so much more badass sounding like anthropos is meaning human. Like, ooh, like I'm anthropos.

Daniel 12:08

Although let's not give the ancient Greeks much credit on their treatment of women. We've gone into some stories before. So yes. So, but but a small linguistic win. So using that Greek word, let's look at one of the first werewolves ever. That comes from Greek mythology. We're gonna go to King Lycaon. He was a king in Arcadia, which is on the Peloponnese Peninsula for specifics. He's been talked about a lot, most famously by your boy Ovid in Metamorphoses. You I remember you talking about it.

Angela 12:35

I think it's pronounced Ovid.

Daniel 12:36

Ovid, sorry, sorry. I always welcome an alternate pronunciation.

Angela 12:41

I'm just kidding, that was so obnoxious because who doesn't know how to pronounce anything and had to literally sit down with my friend Jenny before our Cassandra episode and be like, can you tell me how to pronounce everything? And we went through it. So don't let me be a dick, Daniel. Let me stop.

Daniel 12:58

I am not, I'm never offended about that. I am kind of I have a little I'm offended for my own self. I, as someone who learned Spanish, my my problem is when I see any word that looks different, I'm just like, oh, let's default to Spanish vowel sounds because they're so straightforward and it it leads me astray a lot. So thank you. Anyways, King Lycan, he came from an important bloodline. His dad was named Pelasgus, and he was like a mythological original Greek. So he's like a real original Nepo baby. You know, so he was a king, he was had like lavish parties, big palace and everything. He was a philanderer, one might say. He sired as many as 50 sons with 50 different women. Sorry, I did say this was gonna be a sex-free episode. I guess I forgot about this detail.

Angela 13:42

No, I I think that was more of the times though, because Cassandra's father um had like a hundred kids too. They were just fucking them out.

Daniel 13:52

Yeah, these guys sound like dirtbags.

Angela 13:54

Yeah, I mean, is there anybody in Greek mythology who wasn't a bit sketch about their treatment of women and their yeah?

Daniel 14:02

Um, but for the importance of his werewolf story, he was described as deeply impious. So he was an unbeliever, which actually I'm kind of like cool, like that, love skepticism. So, like, I'm I'm kind of on his side a little bit. Not with the whole siring a bunch of children with different women, hopefully he was a good father. Got it. Anyway, um he is also sometimes described as openly wicked and cruel, including human sacrifice. So maybe I don't like him actually.

Angela 14:29

I know, I was gonna say, I think you just had your second sweet summer child coming of this episode by just being like, I bet he was a nice guy, and then five minutes later you're like, um, actually he was the literal worst. Yeah, my Stockholm syndrome.

Daniel 14:41

Turns out he sucked.

Angela 14:42

Yeah.

Daniel 14:43

Okay, so Zeus, you've heard of him, he got wind of all of this debauchery and impiety going on in Lycon's kingdom. So Zeus decided to go take a look for himself and maybe give some like little tests. So what he did, there's different versions of the story, but he either just visited directly or he kind of disguised himself as like a beggar or like a commoner and you know, went to the went to the castle. So somehow I think in some versions, Lycon like knows it's Zeus, but he doubts that it's Zeus, but it's still like you should be on your best behavior. Zeus is here. But in the story, he decides to like test whether Zeus is actually a god. So what he does is he mixes human entrails with Zeus's food. In some stories, it's a prisoner, like a random prisoner. In other stories, it's his own grandson's entrails. So it's like really gruesome stuff. So they mix these entrails into Zeus's food. Zeus, being a god, notices. Also, in some other stories, he tries to murder Zeus in his sleep. So he just basically fucks with Zeus.

Angela 15:43

Wow, he was like wild and out. Like this man. This man. Okay.

Daniel 15:49

So what do you think? Well, if what would you do if you were eating your meal and you caught some some human entrails in it?

Angela 15:55

Gosh, what a conundrum. I've never thought of this before. Do I want to think about it? No, I don't know.

Daniel 16:02

If you had the powers of Zeus, maybe you would decide.

Angela 16:04

Oh, I'd be I'd be uh scooping up some lightning bolts and sending them straight.

Daniel 16:09

Well, Zeus decides to go straight to 11 and he destroys Lycon's palace with bolts from heaven. Done. Oh my god, exactly.

Angela 16:18

Me and Zeus, me and Zeus, we're just the same person and two different bodies.

Daniel 16:23

Like, so honestly, legitimate. Like, someone serves me human entrails at your house is getting.

Angela 16:28

Yeah, I'm smiting them off of this earth in a hot second.

Daniel 16:33

But then Lycon, like the little pissant he is, just flees into the forest. So Zeus says absolutely not, and he imparts his final curse on King Lycon. Lycon, as he runs in the forest, his body starts to twist and gnarl, and his skin starts to sprout hair.

Angela 16:47

The bones and then the back.

unknown 16:49

Yes.

Daniel 16:50

His face stretches out into a muzzle as he feebly tries to utter human speech for the last time, but all that can come out are growls and ruffs. Maybe not ruffs. All that can come out are growls.

Angela 17:04

I'm just like imagining. Do you know? Have you seen that whole thing with like the Jimothy, the raccoon that is deformed?

Daniel 17:10

Oh, Jimothy is coming up next week. Jimothy is coming up next week. Let's just wait for Jimothy here. Timothy. Okay. So he starts to transform into a wolf. Creepily, the stories say that his eyes stay the same. So everything changes to wolf, but human eyes, which sounds extremely disturbing to me. Like imagine if a wolf walked up to you and looked at you with just human eyes.

Angela 17:32

You know, again, you're sending my brain into a lot of different places that's never gone before. And that's not really what I would have thought about. That's not where I was landing. But okay, that would be weird. I'll humor you.

Daniel 17:46

I'm now just remembering this. Didn't that something like the hunger games they would do with like the creatures they would like leave their eyes? Yeah, the the like mute the like genetically modified dogs. Weren't they dogs in the end? Yeah.

Angela 17:58

The mutts, yeah. I don't know if they would leave. Yeah, I think that's a good idea. Susan Collins would like.

Daniel 18:02

Has she ever had an original idea?

Angela 18:04

Susan Collins! Have you ever had an original thought? Well, I'm sure we'll find some JK Rowling. Have you ever had an original thought moments in this episode?

Daniel 18:14

So King Lycon, he's in the forest now, left as a vicious, bloodthirsty monster. Nothing has changed.

Angela 18:20

Honestly, it doesn't sound like much difference from before, but we'll let it slide. Zeus, nice one. Good job.

Daniel 18:26

That to me is like the symbology right there. His monstrous beast-like form now matches his soul.

Angela 18:32

I mean, I think that's quite like poetic. It's almost as if they were telling poetic stories. Maybe potentially a lesson.

Daniel 18:43

Yeah.

Angela 18:44

Do you sneak?

Daniel 18:46

And so this story does obviously, it has like the kernel of werewolfism, but it varies wildly from what we now think of today. There's you know, no extended universe mythology. He wasn't like bitten by another werewolf, he was just directly cursed from God. It's a permanent transformation. He transforms into a wolf forever. It's not this back and forth. Yeah.

Angela 19:07

I feel like I do feel like the gods were pretty permanent about their curses.

Daniel 19:11

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Angela 19:12

Um historically.

Daniel 19:15

I mean, if you're not permanent as a god, people would start to doubt you. They'd be like, oh, Zeus only made him a wolf for a year. It's not that bad.

Angela 19:22

Yeah. You only get one chance on Mount Olympus.

Daniel 19:26

So I said that King Lycon was maybe or probably the first recorded ex like mythological werewolf. You know how it is with history. It's hard to tell when exactly things were written, records get lost, there's all types of what you know.

Angela 19:40

Yeah, like I'm pretty sure we're only 100% positive-ish of like the last 300 years. So I'm gonna let this one slide.

Daniel 19:47

I mean, I can barely remember last week sometime, so I I know.

Angela 19:50

You just asked me to bring up a curse from this last week, and I was like, I only I don't I don't know. Yeah, I have no idea even what state I was in half the time.

Daniel 19:59

So there is another werewolf-ish story in another ancient epic that you maybe I remember reading in high school, The Epic of Gilgamesh. Uh, this comes out of um ancient.

Angela 20:10

I don't think I ever read that one.

Daniel 20:12

Okay.

Angela 20:12

What happened?

Daniel 20:13

Gilgamesh, he's a like a I believe I remember he's maybe like half guy, he's like a Hercules type warrior guy. He just goes on like tons of journeys. I remember at one point he fights like scorpion people. I it there's lots of stuff. It's just like an epic tale, I think. I don't I and like I said, I read it in high school. And we probably didn't even read the whole thing. I'm sure we read selected portions of it.

Angela 20:32

Well, we did not go to the same high school. Yours was a little fancier than mine, so I was probably just on that public school diet of trash and God knows what.

Daniel 20:41

Well, I mean it's just yeah, but Gilgamesh is one of many like foundational pieces of literature, yeah.

Angela 20:46

I'm sure it's crossed my desk at some point.

Daniel 20:48

I just call it from around 2000 BC in ancient Mesopotamia, modern day Iraq, you know, the Persian Gulf area. And in the story, one small portion, this is like I said, a large epic, but um, at one point the goddess Ishtar tries to seduce Gilgamesh, and he says to her, quote, You have loved the shepherd of the flock, he made meal cake for you day after day, he killed kids for your sake, you struck and turned him into a wolf, now his own herd boys chase him away, his own hounds worry his flanks, and if you and I should be lovers, should I not be served the same fashion as all of these others whom you loved ones? So he's saying you cursed a dude that you're like spurned ex, you straight up turned him into a wolf and cursed him for life. So this idea of being turned into a wolf as punishment goes back to like the core of human beginnings.

Angela 21:39

And also toxic relationships. I know, I know to the very beginning. And like, also, I'm just gonna, for my own well being, we're talking about goats when we're talking about kids. Yes. He's not just killing children. Okay.

Daniel 21:51

I double checked, I was like, let me see if there's a different way they translated that word to check on that.

Angela 21:58

Like I did.

Daniel 22:00

Very valid question. I mean, King Lycon supposedly killed his own grandson to use his entrail. It just ugh. People are out of control. So from these early roots of stories of men being punished, cursed to become wolves as punishment, you start to see this idea of man turning into wolf as a trope throughout Western culture, but also human culture more broadly. We're really focusing on werewolves and like we don't want to, I don't want to get too broad and like wolf-like or animal transfiguration myths. There's time for all of those. We're going to mostly focus on things that evolved from the European werewolf tradition that that started in the Fertile Crescent and in Greece. Also, in um another example is in ancient Norse mythology, there were these warriors. They were called, um, you'll sometimes they're called Berserker Warriors.

Angela 22:50

I don't want to be a berserker warrior.

Daniel 22:52

And they were like warriors meant to like instill fear with their like ferocious, you know, activity.

Angela 22:58

And I'm gonna guarantee that that's the etymology of the word berserker. Yes, yes, yeah. It's a great berserk came from that, not not the other way around.

Daniel 23:06

Yes, yeah. It is the it is the Scandinavian word that English took to mean I'm gonna go berserk. Yeah. So again, I love etymology sometimes. It straight up like tells you how we decided on these things. But there was a specific type of these berserker warriors called. Pardon my ancient Norse attempts at pronouncing this, but the God, Daniel, let's see how you do. The Ulfednar.

Angela 23:30

That is not how that is pronounced. It's Ulfednin. One of my most like serious.

Daniel 23:35

I would love that. That word means wolf coats. And so these guys, they aren't considered like men transforming into wolves. They're men warriors who wore wolf skins. Have you probably seen some like old ideas where they kind of have like the top of the- So they're not boys becoming men and men becoming boys? Thank you. I was going to make a werewolf bar mitzvah reference later. Thank you for doing it for me at the beginning.

Angela 24:00

I'm just like snatching everything up from you before you can get to it. I've got gym, like, I'm just gonna have my collection of little treasures. I've got Jimothy, I've got a werewolf bar mitzvah. What else can I snatch from your cold dead hand?

Daniel 24:13

Given enough of these, I'm gonna get to steal another one of your curses. So watch out, Angela.

Angela 24:17

I know, seriously. That's yeah.

Daniel 24:20

I accept Yeah, so these were not like literal werewolves, but they were supposed to take on like the spirit of the wolf and the ferocity and the terror and the strength of a wolf. So again, it's a sexiness. If that's how you want to look, if you want to get berserked by a berserker, you go nuts. Do what you want to do.

Angela 24:38

You haven't read enough fanfiction, Daniel.

Daniel 24:40

Yeah, I'm sure there's many a story of berserker were.

Angela 24:44

Oh, there's some berserk werewolf stories for sure.

Daniel 24:47

There's some like there's old carvings in like Roman frescoes showing these like whore, not hordes, but these like troops of warriors, Germanic warriors wearing bear skins and wolf skins back in like, you know, in the early days of the Roman Empire and everything. So obviously, this I mean, you're gonna take the most ferocious animals and like to to take on their qualities as as a warrior.

Angela 25:10

Yeah, like men have lost the art form of being psychotic. Wait, no, men need to lose the art form for like all these, like no, like the warrior battle psych, like just absolute psychoticness.

Daniel 25:27

Okay, so there's all these stories of like men taking on wolf qualities, being punished, using their power. These stories start to take on, you know, real cultural weight. They're life and death warnings, you know, people are getting killed by animals. So of course they're gonna try to give more meaning to it than, oh, my loved one was killed by a wolf. Or a bunch of soldiers came and killed us all. They must have been imbued with the strength of wolves that we could not defend ourselves from them.

Angela 25:56

Like, isn't it so weird? Like the tale as old as time. Like, we we wanna, even in present day, we're trying to turn overdoses into murders because it's so hard to like reconcile. That is like like I feel like one of the things I did not expect for us to find in all of these episodes is just like there is, and I know am I getting up on the jump on another thing, the cyclicality of it all, of like just the way that humans behave over and over and over again throughout the ages is just like so similar, and there's so much like we never change.

Daniel 26:33

Yeah, yeah. I mean, it these this is hundreds and hundreds, thousands of years ago, and it rings still so true as to exactly why we're tell still telling the same stories. So as these stories evolve, unfortunately what happens next, guess what? Humans start to hear bad stories, and what do they do? They do even worse things than the stories themselves. Because what we're gonna talk about next are werewolf trials. There were essentially witch trials for people accused of being werewolves.

Angela 27:01

Actually, I'm ready for this because uh sounds like some men got what got theirs. And I'm sick of it always being women who get burned at stakes and get fucked over.

Daniel 27:12

We're gonna talk about a couple specific trials that happened. Most of them were men. There were also women accused of uh of of werewolfism. But there's also men who were killed in the witchcraft trials as well. It was people were just looking to kill for people were just the worst.

Angela 27:26

Yeah, it sounds like there was like maybe this is another thing that's never really changed, but like they weren't quiet about their insatiable bloodlust back in the day. Um I I guess if there's one thing to be said for living in the modern ages is that we've learned to tamp that down a bit.

Daniel 27:40

Um Honestly, have we? I know. I agree. We have, but but I don't know. I mean, there was just like mob mob violence is terrifying, and it happens today. Yeah, yes, yes, yeah, yeah. Yeah. The old timey tortures, horrifying. We also, there's some horrifying people doing horrifying things. I mean, I know. I don't want to get into it. Maybe I'm not as rosy of an outlook on humanity's evolution as you are.

Angela 28:04

Um yeah. It's not that I it's not that I hate men. I just hate everything about them because they're such fucking psychopaths.

Daniel 28:13

Yeah, and we have to we have to tell wolf stories to describe the horrors of what's happening in real life. That's yeah, so that's these werewolf trials. If we'll go back to medieval or, you know, uh hundreds of years ago. This is by the way, this is they started around the 15th century in Europe. So that's if we're placing ourselves in the 1400s. So same time as witch trials, basically. And so these werewolf trials, sometimes it seems like mass hysteria and just like they decided to accuse someone. Other times there probably were maybe there was a real murderer. I mean, people be murdering. Like, I don't know when serial killers started. The modern serial killer is a thing. Maybe they were ancient serial killers. I'm sure there were people doing awful things.

Angela 28:51

Oh, for sure. Because the modern serial killer only dates back to 1894. H. H. Holmes was considered to be the first modern serial killer, and that was literally 1894.

Daniel 29:00

We got King Leica on sacrificing people. Like, isn't that basically?

Angela 29:03

People have been murdering since. Yeah. Have you heard of a man named Kane?

Daniel 29:06

Eventually, people will start to say werewolves are descendants of Kane, too. As well, it just kind of gets lumped into that. So I want to talk about probably the most sensationalized werewolf trial I could find. And it's the most sensationalized because it has the most surviving information. And again, to r this is always important when we're talking about history. This survived for like talking about why it survived and why we know about this also colors how much we can trust it. So this came from some English language translations of now lost German pamphlets that were describing the trial. So it's a translation of something that was like probably tabloid-level reporting to begin with.

Angela 29:42

Like it was propaganda.

Daniel 29:43

Yes, exactly. But it is records of this. There are, you know, this it is believed that this happened, similar to how the pamphlet alleges at least some of the base points. There's there's corroborating evidence, but the the bulk of this is from the these pamphlets. Uh-so giant grain of salt, maybe a heaping tablespoon, however much we feel is necessary.

SPEAKER_00 30:03

Okay.

Daniel 30:03

This story takes place in the late 16th century, so late 1500s, near Bedberg, close to modern-day Cologne, Germany. People in Central Europe at the time, they were freaked out about werewolves. Maybe there were real wolves attacking and killing their animals and some people. Maybe there was a reason that they felt the need to have this trial. Um, and they went out searching for something, someone to blame. And that person they found was Peter Stump. His last name is spelled a bunch of different ways, but generally it's S T-U-M-P-P. Uh he was a farmer in the area who was supposedly this already gets off on a bad foot. He was called Stump because he was missing a left hand, they say. So it's just like, to begin with, these people fucking suck. That detail becomes really important because it's later used as proof that he was a werewolf, because the the supposed wolf sightings I saw was missing the same paw. And it's like, maybe there was a wolf missing a paw, but I also just believe people would have made this up completely. So from the start, it sort of just sounds like there was a guy with a disability that this town decided to scapegoat. Maybe there maybe he was murdering people, but I don't think there's Right.

Angela 31:07

Like I don't know if anybody deserves absolution just from the effects that you've given, but at the same time, it's like, you know that feeling when like you are in a group of people and you're trying to get an idea across or whatever, and like nobody is into it or whatever, like people kind of like gang up against you or go against and you're just like, oh, I've like lost control of the whole room. I feel like this is that on a scale of like a hundred. Yes. And I feel like hysteria in those days, like, I'm going probably down a weird tangent or whatever, but like I think about the Salem witch trials and how much of it was literally just like one person being like, I saw Goody Practor with the devil. And then like things, and like before you even can get control over it, it's like blown up into this whole entire thing. And I just feel like back in the days that you're describing, I'm sure they were afraid of everything because life was confusing and people, you know, they didn't understand what was going on around them, and like nature is such a beast that I think that like that's probably where a lot of these magic systems come from and these, you know, things that go thump in the night that people were afraid of because like they just were not matched for the world around them. And so, like, I can just imagine the level of hysteria. I feel like if I lived in those times, I would have been like the quietest, most just like I will only speak when spoken to person ever. Because n like not only was everyone just being ridiculous because they were just chuck full of fear at all times, which we see that today and how it fucks us all up. Can't even imagine it back then. But I also feel like literally one person says one little thing and it can lead to you being tortured and killed in a horrific way.

Daniel 32:38

Yeah, mob mentality is terrifying. I mean, it is probably one of the that I can't imagine a more scary thing of a whole town full of people all convinced you or something horrifying that you're not, and there's nothing you nothing you could ever do to convince them of the truth. Because I mean, you're living in the Middle Ages. You you no one even understands science. No, I mean I'm the base it yes, it's terrifying. Even today that's a terrifying thought, let alone back then. So, according to the pamphlet, the area had been terrorized for years with vicious attacks by a monstrous wolf. Livestock were being killed, people were attacked, and children did go missing. Bodies were found in horrifying, mutilated states, sometimes like skin torn off, like missing limbs, like really horrifying.

Angela 33:23

Yeah, but that's not surprising, honestly, because again, there's this increased bloodlust. There's a lot of examples of how to fucking mutilate someone because of the way they were torturing people that like even in this day and age, they say there's, you know, a hundred or more active serial killers at any point in time. It's like that's not fresh news, you guys. Like, that was probably happening back then, but even on like a scale where you're not gonna get caught as easily and like it's all around you in an even more visceral way. Like you can literally go and watch people get flayed alive in this in the town hall on a Wednesday afternoon. Can you imagine being somebody who has, you know, whatever is going on inside your mental state and your body chemistry to be like, I'm a killer, I'm a serial killer, I'm gonna go do this. In that period of time, it's like I bet it was just like honestly much more prevalent than it even is today because it was just, I'm sure, so much and also there was probably so much more trauma in these people's lives when they were young. Like it's like it's like the pieces are all there that it's like, oh, for sure there were tons of serial killers in these times. Like this psych like the psychology of it, like the the profile fits.

Daniel 34:33

Yeah. Oh, and I mean, even if it was just real animal attacks, like there Yeah, that too. So whether what was actually happening, the scared people of Edburg, they went looking for an answer. And to them, maybe the most understandable answer is that someone in their community was so secretly evil that it was like had to be supernatural, essentially. So in 1589, Stump was arrested, and I'm not really sure why they uh initially suspected him, to be honest. It doesn't really say, it just says that he was arrested.

Angela 35:04

Well, he was probably like an other, honestly. Yeah, yeah. I mean, but then again, I don't know, would it have been such an other to have a deformity then? Because again, the times were wild.

Daniel 35:13

Well, how but also large accidents that maybe would remove a limb were less survivable as well, then so surviving that.

Angela 35:21

Yeah, I that created a mysticism about him or something.

Daniel 35:24

Yeah, so he was arrested, and it describes him as being put onto a torture device and not fully tortured, but like they began torture. So, but of essentially under torture or at the bare minimum, extreme threat of torture. He did yes, he did confess, but like again, the shadiest prosecution of all time. Um the pamphlets describe Stump's confession saying that he admitted to practicing dark magic since he was a child. They claim that he admitted that the devil gave him a magical belt, which when he put it on, allowed him to transform into a wolf and then back into a man when he removed it. So now we've got man, wolf, back to man, and at will. This was an at-will deal with the devil. I do kind of wonder what the belt looked like. Like, do you think it had like shoes that went with it?

Angela 36:14

Yes. I thought it was like kind of like model-looking leather. Like, I feel like it probably looks like human skin.

Daniel 36:20

An adgeen chic.

Angela 36:22

Yeah, it's like you come up with these things and it's like, well, sounds like we've got a day in court to go have. Like, just pop the belt on them and see what happens. It's like when they would like, I don't know if this is like a Monty Python thing or if this really happened in the Salem witch trials when they were like, a witch floats or sinks, and then they throw them in the river. It's like you guys, like you're like giving yourselves backdoor ways to be like, this is true or not. Yeah. Like, I'm sorry, putting a belt on that was given to you by the devil that turns you into a wolf. I I don't think that there was any magic back then that would make that have happened. So I think this guy had a pretty solid defense against himself in case in his trial.

Daniel 37:00

There was one other werewolf trial I looked at, not the one we're gonna get into, but they also claimed a belt was what allowed them.

Angela 37:05

Okay. What was going on with belts those days?

Daniel 37:08

There's some magical fashion accessories here. And like also, maybe that belt still exists. Like, should we start looking? Like, let's call Nick Cage and the hunt begins.

Angela 37:15

I feel like Nick Cage would already own a belt like that. Like the Nick Cage the person. I don't need national treasure. Nick Cage the person probably has some like human skin belt that turns you into a demon in his possession today.

Daniel 37:29

Wasn't he the one that was gonna buy Madame Lullery's mansion?

Angela 37:32

No, he did own it. He did.

Daniel 37:33

Okay, okay, yeah. Forgotten. Anyway.

Angela 37:35

Oh, there's all kinds of there's a curse about Nick Cage in New Orleans.

Daniel 37:38

He's a whole episode, maybe.

Angela 37:40

Yeah, there's a whole episode. The curse of Nick Cage. Well no, it's it's other curses, but yeah.

Daniel 37:45

There's blursings there, too.

Angela 37:47

Stay tuned. We'll talk more about him. Yeah.

Daniel 37:49

Okay. Anyway, back to Peter Stump. So he confessed to these things under torture. It sounds to me like an unfortunate disabled man was railroaded by a crazy bunch of townsfolk with bloodthirsty justice overall. He was accused of gruesomely killing and cannibalizing 14 children, including his own son's brains for some reason. Like it just seems like they start to wildly throw, like, oh my god, he did this and this and this. He was also accused of killing and eating two pregnant women. There's some like, I'm not even gonna get into it, but the like the things this pamphlet wrote were horrific, like the really gruesome details. And also, they threw on an accusation of an incestuous relationship with his daughter. Oh gosh. Yes. And they said he was having sexual relationships with a succubus sent by the devil. So just like, oh, and this, and this, and this. Like, it's just like, just say he killed some people.

Angela 38:43

It's weird how much this all does connect to the current political landscape of the day.

Daniel 38:48

It's pretty wild, I guess. But Peter Stump was executed for his confessed crimes. Um Okay, that makes it sound less than slightly barbaric. He was less executed and more tortured to death.

Angela 39:00

I was gonna say, did they make it short and sweet? And then I didn't even venture the question because I knew I was gonna get told no.

Daniel 39:07

They also executed his daughter and his mistress. Yeah, just horrible, horrible people. So on October 31st, drama queens, like, Jesus Christ, of course they did it on October 31st.

Angela 39:19

Was it October 31st at the time, though? Was it still Hollows Eve back then?

Daniel 39:24

Yeah, they were being dramatic. So he was put on a breaking wheel. Have you it's a torture device, it's basically a big wheel, they stretch you out on it.

Angela 39:32

It's like I feel like the I've heard the words I need to hear to know what it is.

Daniel 39:37

Yeah, a wheel that is used to break your body. Yeah.

Angela 39:40

No further explanation needed, thank you.

Daniel 39:42

So b before they used it to break him, though, they they first tore flesh from his body uh systematically with red hot pincers.

Angela 39:52

Flaying people alive is like I read a book by Ken Follett that like he spent a good like half a chapter going through the ins and outs of that situation, and like I have never been the same since. And now you've brought hot pincers into the mix.

Daniel 40:10

Yeah, like I can't imagine sitting there, like, as you peel flesh from someone with red hot pincers being like, I am the good guy here. It's just wild.

Angela 40:18

I I always wondered that too.

Daniel 40:19

Yeah, like how people like so they tore the flesh from his body, then they broke all his limbs, and then mercifully at this point, I guess he was beheaded. Oh, and then they put his corpse on top of a pole with his head, and then like a pick like a a like a little statue of a wolf, essentially as a warning to everyone else. So, like truly barbaric behavior.

Angela 40:46

Psycho fucking paths. Psychopaths.

Daniel 40:50

Yeah, I mean, I love them. I just truly feel awful for Peter Stump, for his family. It's i I mean, he is by far the most cursed person here.

Angela 40:58

Oh yeah.

Daniel 41:00

Whether he was culprit or scapegoat, even if he was culprit, I don't see how torturing someone to death is is something a civilized society does. Regardless, I I f you know the framework that this the town folk that condemned him used was they used it to understand something that was so terrifying to them about the world that they were just like, we need to find an explanation, we need to solve this. So, like it makes sense that they would be out searching for what was that true monster, and maybe it was a real monster, too monstrous to believe.

Angela 41:31

I know, there probably was like a bear in the area.

Daniel 41:34

Yeah, I yeah, did someone go around saying Urhats, like what?

Angela 41:37

Yeah, seriously, arts. Come on, you guys, get like get with the program.

Daniel 41:42

And so again, also reminder this was like basically a grocery lane tabloid. Like, like it's it's this was sensationalized. Who knows how much of this really actually all happened? There is a draw, like an old drawing of his execution. It's really horrifying. Um, so I mean, this all happened.

Angela 42:00

What's wrong with people? I don't want to know which moment they captured in that drawing.

Daniel 42:04

Okay, we're getting to, I think, a stopping point-ish for we're gonna finish this story next week. But I do want to give, I don't want to end on the the the sad story of Peter Stomp.

Angela 42:14

I'm very curious how you bring this all back around to Jimothy, the plump raccoon that's been stealing the hearts of the nation. That is going to be some magic from you.

Daniel 42:23

Well, we'll get to Jimothy next week. He's just a he'll be a mention. It's I mean, this is not a Jimothy-centric call. Let's not get hopes too high up.

Angela 42:31

Okay.

Daniel 42:32

But I want to give one other story of a werewolf trial. This one's not necessarily much happier, but it's at least less terrifying. Um, and it shows maybe how some people weren't so truly awful with it. They really were just scared people looking for a solution to a problem. So there's another example of a famous werewolf trial in ancient Livonia, which is now modern-day like Latvia, Estonia. It was Swedish at the time, so Swedish Livonia. There was a man known as Old Feast, which I think is just a great name. Like uh, that's old feast. Old what? Yeah. T-H-I-E-S-S. Thiece. That's how I'm gonna pronounce it. Old feast. He, this guy, he was in a trial for he was a witness of a robbery, and so he was giving testimony, and then just decided while giving testimony to confess to being a werewolf to the court, and the court was like, wait, what? Okay, back it up. Yeah, like he just straight up like went on a tangent, which I get it, is like you've got a captive audience. Maybe he thought it was a good story.

Angela 43:31

He was like, I've got some attention, let's keep this rolling.

Daniel 43:35

But here's the thing the version of his werewolfism that he told was very different from that of Peter Stump, that of Lycon, that of the Berserker Warriors. So he said that werewolves, himself included, were quote hounds of God, and that three times a year on three specific holy days, he and the other hounds of God would transform into their wolf forms, and then they Would go into hell to battle the devil and to retrieve the the the things the devil and demons had stolen from humanity, basically. So he was like, no, no, no, you guys have it all wrong. Werewolves are real, but we're good.

Angela 44:14

So he's sounds like a guy who went viral and then was just trying to keep the the excitement on him so he could make some some uh TikTok money or something.

Daniel 44:24

I just love the idea that he fully lost the plot.

Angela 44:27

Oh, yeah.

Daniel 44:27

Testifying about something completely different.

Angela 44:30

No, he was like, he had a shower thought and he was like just desperate to get it out there into the world, and this was his platform. But hey, we're talking about it today. It's 2026, and we are talking about This and his thesis.

Daniel 44:45

Yep. It's perfect. You he we're playing right into old Thiece's hands.

Angela 44:51

Oh, This, you sneaky dog.

Daniel 44:54

Yeah.

Angela 44:54

So um You sneaky little wolf, you sneaky hound. Oh my god. I could go on and on.

Daniel 45:01

So the judges were like, no, you don't get it. Werewolves work for Satan. And they've like, they tried to argue with him. There was some back and forth. Eventually, they talked to him about some of his other religious beliefs. And this is one thing that also a lot of werewolfism might be is like, we're in a time when religion was changing, Christianity was sweeping over, it was taking over old pagan religions and traditions. And a lot of these like animalistic rituals and stuff were probably just holdovers from old religions.

Angela 45:29

I'm just like imagining These's friends in the crowd being like, dude, shut up shut your mouth. Like, no, stop.

Daniel 45:36

Yeah. In the end, what he was like mostly convicted of, like he was convicted of being a werewolf, but he was mostly convicted of practicing like anti-Christian religion, sort of. He he had this one, apparently he had this little like charm he would do where he would take a warm beer and then bless some salt and sprinkle the salt in it. And then he would say, Sun and moon go over the sea, fetch back the soul that the devil had taken to hell, and give the cattle back life and health, which has taken from them, and then he would drink the beer. And so they were like, Oh, you're like inch, you're committing like enchantment. So that was like it was like leading people away from Christianity.

Angela 46:11

I'm assuming this was in a different language because like I was waiting for the rhyme. I was like waiting for the little jingle.

Daniel 46:17

I'm sorry, it was probably sounded more like my old Norse attempts. Sorry.

Angela 46:23

So it sounds like he's just an eccentric dude who didn't know how to keep his mouth shut.

Daniel 46:28

Thankfully, they did not execute him. This is why I like this story a little better. They were like, Okay, you're a werewolf, you say you're good, we disagree. They only they did flog him, not cool, like horrible, but he lived, and then they banished him. And honestly, if I was at this, I'd be like, good, bye, everyone. You guys suck. I'm gonna go continue living my werewolf.

Angela 46:48

I hope he was like kind of sexy and that like all the like bars he frequented after that. I mean, he probably like was like rocking up to some girls. I mean, like, you know, they call me the hound. Like, I'm an ex-convict, not a big deal.

Daniel 47:03

Like, yeah, so I like to think of old Thiece. Uh, he he makes the story of Peter Stump is too depressing. The story of Old Thieves is a little more of a end on, yeah.

Angela 47:12

Poor Peter.

Daniel 47:13

So, as you see, we're still in medieval Europe. We're still in the time when people are executing people for being witches and werewolves. Old Thieves mentioned the moon in that little enchantment, but that had nothing to do with turning him into a wolf or anything. We so we've yet to see a full moon turning someone into a wolf, we've yet to see someone bitten to become a werewolf, we've yet to see a silver bullet, we've yet to see a lot of the things that like to me, I kept waiting, like, okay, so when are the werewolves coming when I was doing all this research. Right. So we've got a little more history to get through next time, and then we're gonna start to look at like true modern werewolf and kind of how they transform some of these things we've already talked about into what we now see in modern history. But even at this point, I already feel like I have a little bit of a determination on the cursed-ishness of this whole idea of werewolves, of they were cursing people to death for supposed werewolfism, and right there that is just like such a horrific- I mean, I'm not surprised. We all know that kind of stuff happened.

Angela 48:07

Curse of the dumb-dums.

Daniel 48:08

Yeah, but it's it was just like, oh, of course. You know, a hundred years, a few hundred years into these stories of werewolves, they were already killing people because of it. So it's just like, right there, that is just like, uh, humanity, we're just we are the curse, aren't we?

Angela 48:21

We are such a curse. Like, and whoever whoever put this little recipe together and tipped a little too much bloodlust into the into the bowl, they were a curse as well, whomever you are, god or otherwise. Like, what were you thinking? Making us these fucked up little creatures that do this nasty stuff.

Daniel 48:41

That's what you'll see is this we do fucked up stuff and we need to come up with stories to explain it. And and we're gonna see some more of that next week.

Angela 48:48

So we'll So do you think like whoever our creator was was like, it's a means to an end. We're gonna get some sick lore.

Daniel 48:55

Maybe. Yeah, maybe.

Angela 48:57

Um, now it's making a little more sense to me. Fine.

Daniel 49:01

But I think uh, you know, we'll we'll we'll go into that next week, and but for now we'll just have to leave it at uh maybe curse, maybe not.

Angela 49:08

Alright, see you next week.

Daniel 49:17

Cursed is an ish media production. It explores stories of alleged curses, historical mysteries, and supernatural claims. While we do investigate the history and the evidence behind these stories, ultimately you should decide for yourself what to believe. If you have questions, comments, or your own accursed tales to share, send us a hex at uh oh at curstish.com. That's uh oh u h o h all one word at curstish all one word.com