A werewolf captured by the Inquisition in 1598 was "possessed by a demon" while in prison, which gave him such a thirst that he drank a large tub full of water, so his belly was "distended and hard." He refused to eat or drink any more, and soon died. Translating this official report into its probable reality, one would assume the unlucky werewolf was subjected to the water torture and died of a ruptured stomach.
Another unfortunate werewolf was Peter Stubb of Cologne, tortured until he confessed having transformed himself into a wolf by a magic girdle given him by the devil. The judges couldn't find the girdle where Stubb said he hid it, but they explained this by saying it had "gone to the Devil whence it came, so that it was not to be found." Though his case was unproved, Stubb was nastily executed for the crime of lycanthropy: he was sentenced to have the flesh pulled off his bones in ten places with red-hot pincers, then to have his legs and arms broken with a wooden axe; finally to be beheaded and burned.
Yet another werewolf in 1541 never even lasted long enough to go to prison. His captors hacked off his arms and legs, claiming to be searching for the wolf-hair that he wore on the inside of his skin. The hair was not found, so the victim was declared innocent of lycanthropy - which did him little good, as he was already dead.
An often-repeated story concerned a lone man attacked at night by a lone wolf, which he wounded, usually by cutting off a forepaw. Next day a woman would be found with her hand missing, which identified her as the werewolf. Such an incident was reported as fact by Jean de Nynauld in 1615; the woman in the case was burned alive. The story probably recommended itself to some men as a perfect way to dispose of a woman they had mistreated, such as a rape victim.
On December 14, 1598, a tailor of Chalons was sentenced to death for lycanthropy, having confessed to luring children into his shop, murdering and eating them. Methods by which these confessions were extracted from the man can only be guessed, because the judges ordered the court records burned. In 1521 at Poligny, three men were induced by torture to say they had made themselves wolves with a magic salve given them by the devil, and in wolf shape they had eaten several children, and enjoyed sexual relations with wild she-wolves. Gilles Garnier was a famous "lycanthrope" caught by the Inquisition, tortured and executed for having devoured children. The charge was not murder or cannibalism, but lycanthropy. Whatever was left of the pagan wolf cults, it seems the Christian church molded the material into the enduring legend of the werewolf.'
But why all of this? Man fears the wolf. The wolf being a predator of the night is called by man "evil". It's yellow shining eyes cast fear upon the ignorant and it's howling chills the spine of the common human.
Wolves in general have had a bad reputation. Seen as evil killers, used to embody the worst traits of men, harassed and eradicated as dangerous menaces. Is it at all surprising, then, that humans who can turn themselves into wolves face the same bad press?
In a lot of cases, that's exactly what it is: Bad press. Hollywood, especially, has done more to distort and vilify the werewolf than any church. While a lot of original legends and myths hold the werewolf to be a savage, animalistic killer; there are, in fact, many legends that portray him as a kindly soul... although they generally view lycanthropy as a curse rather than a blessing.
The impetus behind such labeling is probably fear:
Fear of the unknown, the unexplainable, the unthinkable. Shoot first, ask
questions of the corpse later... When the farmer loses his livestock to
predation, better to blame the wolf; and by extension, the were.
Medeival Wolf by the Dark Wolf
Science and Lycanthropy by the Dark Wolf
Modern Werewolves by the Dark Wolf
West Wing Calliope's Private Chambers
East Wing Torture Chamber, Prison
