Peter Stummp - The Orignal Werewolf? (1589)

[GOLLUM]

I've just finished watching a fascinating program on the German serial killer, Peter Stumpp, known as the "Werewolf Of Bedburg" whose alleged "exploits" gave rise to a pamphlet in 1589 that was later translated in English in 1590 and became a European bestseller. This modest pamphlet is supposedly meant to have become the precursor or blueprint for what became known as the "Werewolf". Interestingly enough, the pamphlet was thought lost, until oculist Montague Sommers rediscovered it in 1920.

Has anyone read a copy of this pamphlet? Only 2 copies exist in English (one in the British Museum and one in the Lambeth Library).

Here's a brief summary I sourced about Stumpp translated from German....

*WARNING: This is a fairly horrific and disturbing story if even part of its to be believed, so if you're a bit squeamish please do yourself a favour and don't read further.

In 1589 one of the most shocking murder cases of Germany came to trial: the case of Peter Stubbe (aka Peter Stumpp), the "Werewolf of Bedbrug".

The little 16th century town Bedburg, near Cologne was haunted by a creature so blood thirsty that people thought only a demon straight from hell could be responsible: a werewolf (the word is from the old german wereman combinerd with wolf...well, you can figure).

Many hunting parties spent years trying to catch the fiendish creature. One day, so it is told, they came upon a wolf, walking on two legs. The hounds of the party chased the creature and Stubbe eventually gave himself up. The hunters were now standing in front of a man, wearing a belt made out of a wolf's fur, an enchanted, magic belt the devil "had personally handed to the culprit".

Tody we know: there was no devil, no magic belt, only a psychotic, unorganized serial killer.

25 years before he was arrested, Stubbe started to chase the villagers livestock. Day after day they found dead cows, ripped open, just as if a nightmarish demon had come over them.

Then children vanished. Young women vanished. The place was devastated. Together with his mistress Katherine Trompin, Stubbe terrorized Bedburg and it's citizens. His bloodlust grew more and more.

Stubbe killed about 17 young women and children. He strangled them, bludgeoned them or ripped them just open with his bare hands.

He used to rip open the throats of children, cutting their heads, disemboweling their bodies and devouring their meet.

Once he spotted two men and one woman taking a stroll outside the city walls of Bedburg. He called one man to help him with some kind of timber. When the young man joined Stubbe in a little copse, Stubbe cold-bloodedly bludgeoned him . Then he called the second man and killed him too: all very quickly and quietly. The woman was now alarmed and tried to run away. Because her body never was found, the authorities believed Stubbe ate her completely.

The most sickening and depraved crime of Peter Stubbe would follow. Together with his daughter Beel, to whom he repeatedly commited incest he had a little son. Stubbe took him out into the woods, there he tore his body apart, when still alive.

Afterwards he smashed his skull with a stone and devoured his brain. Being asked by the authorities, he said: "The brain had been the greatest delicacy in his entire life".

After killing and disemboweling a pregnant woman he was tracked down and had to stand trial before the magistrate in the town of Bedburg. Stubbe had been interrogated - that is, he was put on the rack. Though the "magic belt" wasn't found after a big search party combed the woods, Stubbe was convicted together with his daughter Beel and his mistress Trompin.

The punishment given the infamous french werewolf Gilles Garnier some years before Stubbe, - being burned alive- was adjudged lenient enough for Stubbe's two accomplices, but for Stubbe himself, the main culprit something more stringent was required. While being strapped on a wheel, red hot pinchers were used to tear away his flesh in ten body parts, then his arms and legs had been crushed with the head of an axe.

The process was completed with decapitation and burning of his body.

The authorities for good measure instituted a symbolic warning for all devil worshippers: they erected a pole in a public place, on which was lashed the torture wheel and a picture of a wolf while at the very top was perched Stubbes decapitated head.

 

[Mouse]

I've read this. I've got it in one of my books... possibly The encyclopaedia of the Undead by Bob Curran. Amazon.com: Encyclopedia of the Undead (9781564148414): Bob Curran: Books Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's in there. Very interesting stuff!

 

[GOLLUM]

You mean the story of Stumpp in general OR a copy of the original 1859 pamphlet story?

 

[Mouse]

One sec, I'll have a look...

Edit: It seems to be both, they mention the pamphlet and have bits from it, then the rest of it is the story in general. But the words are pretty much what you have in your post. He's referred to as Peter Stubb though, but apparently he's also known as Stubbe, Stumpf or Stube.

 

[GOLLUM]

Yep, those are variations of the surname.

So, we're still after a complete copy of the pamphlet's contents.

Perhaps it was published somewhere, I'm sure some of the Horror gurus here will be able to add further.

Thanks for getting the ball rolling....

Night....

 

[Mouse]

No probs, it's probably printed in another book somewhere I reckon! Night.

 

[j d worthington]

You might want to take a look at this:

The Damnable Life and Death of Stubbe Peeter

However, the "original" werewolf? Well, we have accounts of werewolves at least as far back as Petronius' Satyricon (see the tales told at the feast of Trimalchio) and possibly earlier, which often included just such actions/details. Sabine Baring-Gould had quite an informative and fascinating book on the subject, The Book of Werewolves, which is relatively easy to find (I believe it may currently be in print from Dover here, for instance, but older, facsimile editions are relatively easy to come by and usually quite inexpensive), which traces the belief from its origins through history....

(Or, if you don't mind reading it on a screen, there are various sites such as this, which have the text...)

The Book of Werewolves - by Sabine Baring-Gould (1837-1924)

 

[GOLLUM]

You might want to take a look at this:

The Damnable Life and Death of Stubbe Peeter

However, the "original" werewolf? Well, we have accounts of werewolves at least as far back as Petronius' Satyricon (see the tales told at the feast of Trimalchio) and possibly earlier, which often included just such actions/details. Sabine Baring-Gould had quite an informative and fascinating book on the subject, The Book of Werewolves, which is relatively easy to find

Yes the program mentioned that fact about references to wolves by Petronius et al... but maintained that the "blueprint" upon which the werewolf as we knew/know it from 1600s to present was really founded more on this event and subsequent 1589 pamphlet. Anyway, that's what they said, I haven't read enough werewolf stories pre and post that "event" to judge how valid an assertion this is but I didn't feel completely comfortable with this premise, hence the deliberate ? in my thread Title.

Still, it was an interesting program. It's a 3 part series, studying "icons of horror" as they like to put it.

Thanks for posting those links....

 

[j d worthington]

I rather thought that might be why that was there. And no, I can't agree, given the various cases cited through history, most of them depicting exactly this sort of sexual and cannibalistic aberration. I would, however, have to hear the entire thing to see where they get the idea that this served as a "blueprint" for our ideas of werewolves since. If they are claiming that this was a better-known case, that may be possible (though I have my doubts); if there is something "special" about this case, I'd like to hear what it is, as I see nothing which is terribly different from several others both before and since -- even the "girdle" or "belt" seems to not be unique, from my understanding.

Summers has quite a bit on Stump in his The Werewolf, reproducing the entire English text of the pamphlet in Chapter VI. This one, too, is currently in print from Dover (under the slightly altered title of The Werewolf in Lore and Legend). But, again, Summers is someone who was both brilliant and unreliable, and should always be taken with a considerable amount of salt. (As an editor, or when it comes to his knowledge of the Gothics, however, he could be quite remarkable.)

(Incidentally, this sort of thing served very much as the basis for Guy Endore's The Werewolf of Paris, where he used such a figure as a way to explore the levels of not only acceptance but actual support of violence in both individuals and society.)

At any rate, thanks for bringing this one in... it's a fascinating subject, with a lot of history and folklore behind it, and I'm glad to see some of the original sources being discussed again....

 

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy]

I'd say that it was the other way round - that Peter S.'s psychosis took the form of an identification with the already-prevalent folk tales of lycanthropy (a concept that had existed since classical times, as JD points out), or simply that, since the legend was so well-known, people associated such a bloodthirsty killer with it (just as any modern-day violent attack by a swarthy, bearded individual may be ascribed to terrorist action).

I haven't read Summers' book on Werewolves, but I have read The Vampire, His Kith And Kin and it is an odd mix of learning and credulity. Thanks for bringing this interesting piece of lore up, I shall certainly have to read The Werewolf in Lore and Legend at some point.

 

[GOLLUM]

At any rate, thanks for bringing this one in... it's a fascinating subject, with a lot of history and folklore behind it, and I'm glad to see some of the original sources being discussed again....

Glad to be of some small service....

Yes, to clarify, that statement about the 1859 event forming the blueprint of the modern day concept of the werewolf was very briefly made by a couple of historians on the show and not I got the sense folk who were necessarily specialists in horror film/fiction. In hindsight, it was a little disappointing as it was one of those throw-away lines and not subsequently backed up in any meaningful way. I'm sure you've witnessed what I'm talking about displayed by many a talking head in your time.

The vast majority of the film was spent on describing the events by way of a re-creation of Peter Stumpp's alleged behaviour and a fair deal spent on the psychology of Sumpp, his fellow townspeople, the "Trail" if you could call it that with spoken excepts from said pamphlet and some analysis of clinical lycanthropy. In fact it was the psychology discussed by experts regarding the case (incl. lycanthropy) and in general terms that was the most interesting aspect followed by the story itself and subsequent pamphlet (as I wasn't aware of that). The producers didn't really develop or expand upon the idea of the development of the Werewolf in history per se.

 

[GOLLUM]

I'd say that it was the other way round - that Peter S.'s psychosis took the form of an identification with the already-prevalent folk tales of lycanthropy (a concept that had existed since classical times, as JD points out), or simply that, since the legend was so well-known, people associated such a bloodthirsty killer with it (just as any modern-day violent attack by a swarthy, bearded individual may be ascribed to terrorist action).

That was more or less the thrust of what the program's psychologists were saying. Anyway, as I've already suggested, the psychology of this "event" and general discussion revolving around lycanthropy was the most interesting part of the program.

 

[GOLLUM]

The next 2 programs will be covering "Frankenstein” and “Dracula.”...now don't shoot the messenger that's what the promos are saying. I'll report back here on those 2 shows if anyone is interested.

These programs are predominantly docudramas rather than the more considered or informed pieces I've seen in the past on the "history" or "development" or "Origin of" horror icons in art.

The reviews I've seen aren't too glowing but then I didn't know about the Stumpp case and found that to be interesting in itself even though the program did not help to throw much light on the development of the "Werewolf" in history.

 

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy]

Who is producing these documentaries?

 

[GOLLUM]

Hardy Pictures for Channel 5 and the History Channel J.P.

I'll still be watching the remaining episodes....out of curiosity if nothing else.

 

[GOLLUM]

OK, I don't intend to be a mouthpiece for my local TV stations but next week they're having a double header on this series. Prior to that is a semi-interesting show on paranormal investigations. I only caught the tail end of this on Sunday night. Looks like I'll be ordering in for some extra popcorn....

Part 2 of the 3 part series Unexplained :
Tony Robinson and science journalist Becky McCall step into the unknown to investigate whether past paranormal events should be taken seriously. During the Second World War Helen Duncan proved to be an uncannily accurate medium, and the last person to be jailed under the Witchcraft Act of 1735. Her claims were taken so seriously that MI5 became involved. But was she really a threat to national security, and were the ghosts of wartime servicemen telling her secrets she should never have known?

Episode 2: Frankenstein
In 19th century London, two decades before Mary Shelley wrote her acclaimed novel, pioneering scientific showman Professor Giovanni Aldini successfully used electricity to reanimate animals, severed human limbs and the corpses of recently beheaded criminals. But Aldini needed a whole body - a strong, male specimen, very recently killed by asphyxiation - to attempt his most ambitious experiment: a complete human reanimation. The experiment, like no other, would have an extraordinary, lethal climax. It was this true, chilling event that inspired Mary Shelley's Gothic horror story Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus.

I'm not absolutely sure on the claim about this inspiring Shelley to write Frankenstein but I'm sure the real Horror aficionados here will help to clarify this point...

Episode 3: Dracula
In 15th century Romania, three monks found themselves chained to the wall of a dripping cell in the castle of Vlad Dracula, Voyvoyd of Wallachia. More commonly known as Vlad the Impaler, he was the most terrifying ruler of Medieval Europe, a psychopathic mass-murderer and the only man who stood between Christian Europe and the advancing armies of the Ottoman Turks. It was this vicious story that gave birth to the Dracula character of fact and fiction.

If nothing else if it gets the mainstream interested and talking about these subjects then perhaps something constructive can come out of it....

Over and out.

 

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy]

They're (no doubt consciously) simplifying chains of cause and effect to the verge of falsification, but one never knows where the odd new fact or idea may spring from!

 

[GOLLUM]

Yeh well... I had seriuos doubts.

Still, I'm determined to watch the remaining programs. We simply don't get much discussion/historical perspectives on horror themes on Australian mainstream television, so better a few tarnished crumbs than nothing at all.

 

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy]

Mary Shelley was a well-read person, and also had access to the discussions of matters of current interest amongst the circle of intellectuals who gathered around her father, William Godwin. It's not impossible she heard of Aldini's experiments (carried out on the body of a freshly-executed murderer). Aldini's uncle was Luigi Galvani, whose theory of galvanism is mentioned by Shelley as one of the things that influenced her, apart from Erasmus Darwin's experiments, and unless Shelley was willfully suppressing Aldini's influence, it's equally possible that she evolved the concept of scientifically creating life from Galvani's writings.

It's worth noting that, Hammer films aside, Frankenstein's eventual method was not the electrical resurrection of a dead person, which he had found would not work, but the animation of a synthetic being, made from unspecified materials. This makes it seem more like a scientific version of a golem. If Aldini was Shelley's direct influence, her story would have been a lot closer to the one told in Peter Ackroyd's The Casebook Of Victor Frankenstein.

 

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy]

Here's Shelley on the subject from the Introduction to the 1931 edition of Frankenstein (the reference to Erasmus Darwin is repeated in her Preface to that edition):

Many and long were the conversations between Lord Byron and Shelley, to which I was a devout but nearly silent listener. During one of these, various philosophical doctrines were discussed, and among others the nature of the principle of life, and whether there was any probability of its ever being discovered and communicated. They talked of the experiments of Dr. Darwin, (I speak not of what the Doctor really did, or said that he did, but, as more to my purpose, of what was then spoken of as having been done by him,) who preserved a piece of vermicelli in a glass case, till by some extraordinary means it began to move with voluntary motion. Not thus, after all, would life be given. Perhaps a corpse would be re-animated; galvanism had given token of such things: perhaps the component parts of a creature might be manufactured, brought together, and endued with vital warmth.

As noted in that preface, she also had a dream which contributed to her conception of this story.