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29 - The Werewolf of Bedburg - Peter Stumpf · Who Did What Now With Katie Charlwood

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  Speaker 1: You're listening to you an Airwave Media podcast. Hi everybody,
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: and welcome back to Hood and What Now the history
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: podcast that is not your history class with me your
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  Speaker 1: exuberant host, Katie Charlewood, potato fritter lover and reader of books. Well,
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  Speaker 1: as you're listening to this, I am currently in Scotland
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  Speaker 1: on a secret project that I can't tell you about
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: it super secret. Oh we're off on a secret mission,
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  Speaker 1: a totally secret plot. Yes, that's fun. So this is
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  Speaker 1: actually prerecorded before I travel, just so that I actually
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  Speaker 1: get it done in time, because if I have to
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  Speaker 1: try and do this over there, because I'm going to
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  Speaker 1: be so busy, I don't know if I'm going to
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  Speaker 1: have the time with the option. But that's okay because
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: because I'm here right now, and oh my god, I
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  Speaker 1: actually really cannot wait to have a potato fritter. Every
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: dreaming of potato fritters, like with lots of salt and
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  Speaker 1: ventnit car just oh you have no idea. I'm just
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  Speaker 1: like salivating it the idea of it, because I haven't
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  Speaker 1: had one in so long, and like because they just
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  Speaker 1: don't do them in Ireland. Oh just like we chip
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  Speaker 1: our art. It's gonna be so good. But before I
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  Speaker 1: get into anything else, I want to say thank you,
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: thank you, thank you to everyone who has been writing
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: and reviewing on Apple podcasts. You have no idea the
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: difference it makes, like the business end of it, from
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: like that annoying side of it. It really helps boost
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: you know, the show up the charts and it makes
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: all the difference. And I genuinely want to thank you. No,
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: but seriously, though, I really want a potato for Oh
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: and speaking of people doing awesome things, I got an
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  Speaker 1: item from my wish list, my Amazon wish lists sent
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  Speaker 1: to me, and it's a book. It's a book I
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  Speaker 1: wanted to read for quite a while actually, but I
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  Speaker 1: haven't bought any books that have not been specific to
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  Speaker 1: whatever I'm researching, just because funds are low. But yeah,
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  Speaker 1: so somebody sent me a book but they didn't leave
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: a note, and because normally when someone sends a gift
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: through Amazon, there's a note, and like I want to
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  Speaker 1: be able to thank them. I want to say thank
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  Speaker 1: you for the lovely gift, you know, I just I
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  Speaker 1: just I just think it's so anytime anyone sends me anything,
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  Speaker 1: I am so full of like joy, you know, for
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  Speaker 1: someone to think of me and go, I'm going to
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  Speaker 1: get that person something. You know, It's just it's so
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  Speaker 1: kind and it's so lovely. I just, oh, it is
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  Speaker 1: just so nice. You know. I don't know how to
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  Speaker 1: explain it, but anyway, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, great,
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  Speaker 1: your jibber jabber in fact me, in fact you I will.
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  Speaker 1: But first we get to get our source on. So
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  Speaker 1: because this week we are talking about werewolves, yes, so
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  Speaker 1: because it is this spooky month, and we started off
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  Speaker 1: with the Vladim Palar. Then we had Tea the cannibal.
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  Speaker 1: So we've had a vampire and a cannibal and now
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  Speaker 1: we're onto a werewolf. So yes, the werewolf of Begburg.
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  Speaker 1: So we have as our sources Mysterious Monsters by Daniel
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  Speaker 1: Farson and Angus Hall, Human Monsters and Illustrated Encyclopedia of
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  Speaker 1: the World's Most Vicious Murders by David Everett, Witchcraft, Licanthropy,
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  Speaker 1: Drugs and Disease, An Anthropological study of the European witch
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  Speaker 1: Hunts by Homo and sid Ke. I've probably pronounced that wrong.
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  Speaker 1: And we also have a true discourse declaring the damnable
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  Speaker 1: life of death of one Stub Peter a most wicked sorcerer,
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  Speaker 1: and that's like the original sort of translation of the
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  Speaker 1: tale from fifteen ninety. So let's talk about Peter Stump,
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  Speaker 1: also known as Peter Stubb or Peter Stump because you know,
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  Speaker 1: way back when spelling wasn't quite as consistent as is now,
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  Speaker 1: like dictionaries weren't really a thing, so names sort of
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  Speaker 1: changed depending on like I don't know your mood or whatever.
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  Speaker 1: So I'm gonna call him Stump because that's easier for
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  Speaker 1: me to say. Peter Stump was born somewhere at some time,
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  Speaker 1: because he is a farmer in Germany in the sixteenth century,
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  Speaker 1: and we know, sweet fuck call about the everyman in
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  Speaker 1: the past. So most likely he was born in or
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  Speaker 1: near Bedburg in Rhineland, and and what we now know
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  Speaker 1: is Germany sometime in the fifteen hundreds. All we know
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  Speaker 1: is that by the fifteen eighties he is a widower
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  Speaker 1: with two children. So he has two kids, one called
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  Speaker 1: Sybil perhaps a daughter, and a son that we know
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  Speaker 1: absolutely nothing about. We don't know his age, we don't
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  Speaker 1: know his name, we just know he existed. So at
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  Speaker 1: this point Bedburg, Rhineland, all that stuff. It's part of
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  Speaker 1: the Holy Roman Empire. And during this time there's like
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  Speaker 1: there's a ton of stuff going on. There are there's
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  Speaker 1: a whole Protestant versus Catholic thing and you know, which
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  Speaker 1: never goes well, as anyone who's ever heard anything about
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  Speaker 1: history would know. And you know, there's some ruler fighting
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  Speaker 1: with another ruler. And basically this area was a rural area,
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  Speaker 1: had basically been you know, in the middle of just
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  Speaker 1: shit canstantly. It had been ravaged by the Cologne War,
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  Speaker 1: also known as the Sewer War by the way, which
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  Speaker 1: we'll discuss another time. But oh yeah, and the plague.
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  Speaker 1: Let's not forget the plague is happening. But stump stub stump. Well,
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  Speaker 1: actually that being said, Peter had a stump. Actually his
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  Speaker 1: left hand had been lobbed off. I don't know why,
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  Speaker 1: I don't know how. I just know it was missing.
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  Speaker 1: Because sometimes when you get information from the past, you
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  Speaker 1: only get a wee bit of it. So anyway, in
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  Speaker 1: the fifteen sixties, weird chit starts happening around Bedburg. The
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  Speaker 1: first thing, live stop start being slaughtered. They are exanguinated
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  Speaker 1: and mutilated. Basically, they are repti shreds and the blood
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  Speaker 1: is drained from them, so we're talking so we're talking goats, sheep, cows,
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  Speaker 1: like just destruction everywhere and then and this was something
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  Speaker 1: they just kept happening for years. So farmers would just
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  Speaker 1: go out to like their fields and shit, and they
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  Speaker 1: would just find animals torn apart, their livelihood and their
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  Speaker 1: livestock destroyed, which is bad enough, but then it wasn't
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  Speaker 1: just the live stock that was being ripped to shreds.
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  Speaker 1: Something started attacking the villagers, mainly women and children, and
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  Speaker 1: like at this point in time, everyone assumed like a
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  Speaker 1: werewolf fever effectively had spread through the countryside. Like France
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  Speaker 1: and Germany especially were in the thrall of the fear
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  Speaker 1: of werewolves, so much so that when somebody couldn't find
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  Speaker 1: their child, if their child went missing, they gave up
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  Speaker 1: all hope and naturally assumed that they had been taken
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  Speaker 1: and murdered by the werewolf. So over twenty years, kids
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  Speaker 1: would just disappear from farms, from their homes. Even women
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  Speaker 1: were often grabbed on their way home, and young women
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  Speaker 1: they disappeared from paths that they walked every day, so
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  Speaker 1: whether they were going through the forest or a field
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  Speaker 1: or a pasture that's where they would be taken from. Now,
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  Speaker 1: it's nice to say that nothing has changed, and it's
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  Speaker 1: good to see that nothing's really changed in nearly five
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  Speaker 1: hundred years. Woo so content warning, this is going to
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  Speaker 1: get kind of gross. Some of the women who were
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  Speaker 1: attacked were pregnant, not that that helped them any. The
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  Speaker 1: bodies that were recovered were horrifically mutilated, and due to
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  Speaker 1: the severity of the attacks, that's what really led people
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  Speaker 1: to really grab onto the werewolf idea. As opposed to
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  Speaker 1: it just being you know, a wolf or pack of wolves.
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  Speaker 1: It had to be something greater basically. So the townspeople
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  Speaker 1: were like, fuck this for a game of soldiers, We're
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  Speaker 1: gonna get this fucking werewolf. So out they went hunting.
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  Speaker 1: So they would go from town to town, village to village,
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  Speaker 1: and they would be like, you know, armed to the
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  Speaker 1: fucking teeth, where did you get this wolf? Which I'm
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  Speaker 1: gonna actually quote now was described as greedy, strong and mighty,
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  Speaker 1: with eyes great and large, which in the night sparkled
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  Speaker 1: like unto brands of fire, a mouth great and wide,
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  Speaker 1: with both sharp and cruel teeth, a huge body, and
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  Speaker 1: mighty pause, much better too, eat you with ha. I
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  Speaker 1: couldn't help myself. I'm so sorry, but so on a
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  Speaker 1: particular hunting day. So one day in fifteen eighty nine,
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  Speaker 1: after years of trying to catch this wolf, a group
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  Speaker 1: of men with their dogs track the wolf. So the
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  Speaker 1: hounds have it cornered, and as the men approach, they
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  Speaker 1: realize it's not a wolf at all, but instead it
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  Speaker 1: is wealthy farmer Peter Stump. So this hunting party they
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  Speaker 1: are chasing this wolf down for so, depending on where
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  Speaker 1: you hear this story, they either saw him transform or
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  Speaker 1: they were really fucking surprised to see him, or he
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  Speaker 1: owned a cloak made out of wolfskin that he may
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  Speaker 1: or may not have been wearing. But it's just we
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  Speaker 1: don't we don't know, we don't know. Nobody actually wrote
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  Speaker 1: this shit down, So maybe I guess now the first
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  Speaker 1: thing that made them go, ah, this fella right here,
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  Speaker 1: this is the killer because all reports of the wolf
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  Speaker 1: said that it had one paw and Peter Stump had
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  Speaker 1: a stump. They're both missing a left hand slash pop.
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  Speaker 1: So he was taken in for questioning, and by questioning
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  Speaker 1: I mean torture, and he confessed to at the age
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  Speaker 1: of twelve, making a pact with the devil himself. Also
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  Speaker 1: in addition, furthermore, the Prince of Lies himself provided him
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  Speaker 1: a magic belt in exchange for his immortal soul, and
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  Speaker 1: according to Stump, this magic belt, which was surprisingly never
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  Speaker 1: recovered whatever, managed to turn him into a wolf. So
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  Speaker 1: not only does he confess to this, but he also
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  Speaker 1: confesses to a fuct on of murders. He claims he
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  Speaker 1: is responsible for the deaths of at least thirteen children,
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  Speaker 1: two pregnant women, a few more women, and animals. So
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  Speaker 1: if you don't like people talking about murder on now,
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: I'm going to do a warning and don't worry it
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: gets worse because so if you are uncomfortable with discussion
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  Speaker 1: of horrific violent murder, I'm gonna suggest you skip like
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  Speaker 1: thirty five seconds. The pregnant women that were attacked and murdered,
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  Speaker 1: he ripped the fetuses from their whimbs and ate them,
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  Speaker 1: which he then described as tasty morsels ew and also
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  Speaker 1: ick the young women that weren't pregnant or that he
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  Speaker 1: that weren't knowingly pregnant, I'm gonna say he raped them.
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  Speaker 1: He used the term ravaged but I'm gonna be correct here.
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  Speaker 1: He raped them before he slaughtered them. With the small children,
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  Speaker 1: he strangled them, bludgeoned them, and ripped their throats open
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  Speaker 1: with his bare hands. Some of them he disembelled. Many
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  Speaker 1: of them were partially eaten. He also had a really
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  Speaker 1: big thing for lambs and calves, like lambs, calves and kids.
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  Speaker 1: So what he would do is he would just tear
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  Speaker 1: them apart and eat them raw. But it's not all
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  Speaker 1: dim engloom. At least one child escaped him. So a
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  Speaker 1: bunch of kids are out frolicing in the fields and
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  Speaker 1: Stump runs after them. I'm gonna assume he's in his
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  Speaker 1: weird wolf garb and being really terrifying. Like it doesn't
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  Speaker 1: state that, but is it. Logically, I'm thinking that's kind
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  Speaker 1: of what you do. So he tries to grab this
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  Speaker 1: little girl by the neck, and all the other kids
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  Speaker 1: just flee. They get the fuck out of there, and
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  Speaker 1: he tries to grab her by the neck and you know,
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  Speaker 1: do his throat ripping thing, but she's wearing this really
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  Speaker 1: high stiff collar and he's like trying to get at it,
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  Speaker 1: but you know, she ends up doing this high pitched scream,
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  Speaker 1: which makes all these cows run towards her because they
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  Speaker 1: think The theory is that they think that her like
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: wailing noises, sounded like a calf and just dress, so
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  Speaker 1: they all ran towards her. Because all the cows are
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  Speaker 1: running towards him, He's like ah no, and drops her
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  Speaker 1: and runs and she manages to get away, but like,
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  Speaker 1: she wasn't able to describe him, because I don't think
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  Speaker 1: she was looking back. To be honest, what did this
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  Speaker 1: person look like? Like a fucking wolf? So not only
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  Speaker 1: did he do this, but he also confessed to having
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  Speaker 1: a devilish mistress as well as seducing a good Christian woman,
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  Speaker 1: having an incestuous relationship with both his sister and his daughter.
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  Speaker 1: His daughter gets pregnant, and Okay, this puts a little
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  Speaker 1: bit iff a because I'm not sure he may or
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  Speaker 1: may not have eaten his baby son grandson. And one
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  Speaker 1: last thing, he confessed to luring his firstborn son into
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  Speaker 1: the deep, dark, shadowy parts of the wood where no
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  Speaker 1: one could see him, kills him and eats his fucking brains.
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  Speaker 1: So naturally, after this big confession that he makes on
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  Speaker 1: the rack, which may or may not be a product
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  Speaker 1: of just pure torture. So I mean he could be innocent,
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  Speaker 1: I guess, because again we're right in the middle of
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: where with fever, in a country in turmoil between wars,
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: and in the middle of a religious upheaval. So he
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: was either an incredibly vicious serial killer with some kind
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: of psychological licanthropy, or he was an innocent man who
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: was a patsy for I don't know, animals and as
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: an excuse to lead people back to the quote unquote
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  Speaker 1: true church. So Stubb was found guilty on October twenty eighth,
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  Speaker 1: fifteen eighty, and he was executed. But how I hear
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: you ask, Well, he was laid on a wheel, so
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  Speaker 1: he's spreadygled on this thing, and red hot pincers are
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  Speaker 1: used to pull the flesh off of his bones in
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  Speaker 1: ten spots. Why specifically ten? Why specifically? Ten? Whom's to say?
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  Speaker 1: But after that his legs and arms are broken with
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  Speaker 1: like an axe, and then his head is chopped off,
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  Speaker 1: so his body is then burned. But Peter was not
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  Speaker 1: the only person to die that day. You see his
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  Speaker 1: mistress Catherine Trumpin and his daughter Sybil also flayed and
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  Speaker 1: burnt at the steak for aiding in a bedding, I suppose,
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  Speaker 1: and so ends the story of Peter Stump, the werewolf
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  Speaker 1: of Bedburg. And there's not really any reports of like
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: massive deaths, you know, after his execution. But it does
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: feel a wee bit Now, I'm the first person to
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: say that sometimes a creepy weirdo is in fact a
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: creepy weirdo. But it is funny that this well off Protestant,
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: you know, one handed farmer who is a wee bit
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: weird and keeps to himself, manages to be the one
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: person who also isn't exactly young, manages to be the
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: one person in this area the one happens to be,
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: you know, the villain in this predominantly Catholic area and
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: this predominantly Catholic and impoverished area. I'm just I'm just
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: out there. Well, if you liked my telling today's spookky
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: story from history, feel free to rate and review five stars,
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: say something nice. Tell me whether you think he did
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: it or whether he was just a scapegoat for basically
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: politics in the church. So what did we learn today? Well,
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: the first thing we learned, if there's a rich man
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: in the village, he's probably up to no good. The
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: wars always affect the people in the dregs of society
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: more so than the people at the top. What else
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: do we learn? Then, no matter what century you're in,
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: people will give you a nickname and it will stick. Okay,
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: So I want to say thank you to everybody for listening,
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: and don't forget. You can follow me on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok.
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: Links are in the description down below, and you can
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: also follow me on stuff. And let's talk about reading, watching, listening. Okay,
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: so watching, I haven't seen it yet, but I have
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: heard good things about the new Venom movie. Go watch it?
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: Why not? It's fun reading. I am going to recommend
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: the new book that I got. It is Girl Woman
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: Other by Bernardine every Still. You should absolutely read this.
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: I am one chapter in and I'm already engrossed. You
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: should absolutely read this book. So for listening. For listening,
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: I am going to recommend a podcast. Actually, I'm going
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: to recommend Wine and Crime because sometimes I like to
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: listen to them to kind of bring my mood up.
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: I find them really really funny. I would absolutely listen
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: to them and them really really funny, but also they
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: talk about crime which I'm really into. So that's fun.
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: So I'm going to say a big thank you and
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: a shout out and hello to Jerry. Jerry instead of
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: a Shakespearean compliment, Jerry is one of my new supporter's
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: own Patreon and didn't want a historic. Instead of having
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: a Shakespearean compliment or insult, they wanted me to let
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: you all know that Percy Shelley was human trash. Oh,
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: I had such fancy in that. I do love doing
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: shore its It's so much fun. But it is late
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: and I have packing to do, so I am going
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: to bid you all adieu. So Arios au revoir of Wairazen,
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: my friends, Bye bye