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METROPOLITAN MUSEUM/SCALA, FLORENCE
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He was just a farmer who said he wanted to be a werewolf. Who had “confessed” (under torture) to making a pact with the devil—as well as to killing people and having sexual relations with a beautiful demon.
German townspeople didn’t view Peter Stump as a tortured crackpot. Long before big-screen tales on Professor Lupin, Harry Potter, and the just-released “Werewolf by Night!”, many people viewed werewolves as real (shown above, an engraving of werewolf-induced carnage). After a 1500s version of a “trial of the century,” Stump was convicted, skinned, impaled, and burned at the stake.
But there is no silver bullet for fear. What led to these panics? Who was usually accused of being a werewolf?
Read the full story here.
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