The Peter Stumpp Werewolf Trial

My mother had a habit of keeping her most delicate archival materials in acid-free glassine sleeves, but the file I pulled from the drawer marked OCCULT EVENTS this morning was bare. The manila folder is worn at the crease, containing photocopies of Early Modern woodcuts and a translated transcription of a 16-page pamphlet published in London in 1590. The pamphlet is the primary surviving record of a lost German original, documenting the trial and execution of Peter Stumpp in 1589.

The events took place in Bedburg, near Cologne, within the Holy Roman Empire. Stumpp, a local farmer whose name is alternatively recorded as Stubbe or Stumpf, was accused of witchcraft, cannibalism, and lycanthropy. Under the extreme duress of torture, Stumpp confessed to a series of horrific crimes, including the murder of fourteen children and two pregnant women, alongside allegations of incest and relations with a succubus. The core of the supernatural accusation rested on a “magical girdle” or belt allegedly gifted to him by the Devil, which allowed him to transform into a wolf with great, sparkling eyes.

The execution, carried out on October 31, 1589, was designed as a public spectacle of absolute ruin. Stumpp was strapped to a breaking wheel, his flesh torn with red-hot pincers and his limbs broken with the blunt side of an axe before he was beheaded. His body was then burned. To complete the warning, authorities mounted his severed head on a pole next to a wooden effigy of a wolf. His daughter, Sybil, and his mistress, Katherine, were executed alongside him, both sentenced to be burned at the stake.

Historians view the case not as a supernatural event, but as a tragic reflection of the era’s intense religious and social anxieties. The confession itself was entirely fabricated under torture. Even the physical evidence cited by contemporaries—such as Stumpp’s missing left hand, which allegedly corresponded to a missing forepaw on the hunted “werewolf”—was likely a convenient post-hoc justification for his guilt, though the etymological link between his missing hand and the name “Stumpp” remains a theory.

In the margin of the pamphlet’s title page, my mother had traced the outline of the wooden wolf effigy. Below it, she wrote: They built a wooden beast to prove the flesh was real. Who was the monument truly for?

It is 02:52 now. The house is exceptionally quiet tonight, though the temperature in the study has dropped significantly over the last hour. My breath is casting thin, brief plumes of white in the glow of the monitor, a strange thing for an August night, but the drafts in these old walls are unpredictable. I should close the file.

I am sending this to Lukas over the line. If it only exists here, it doesn’t exist.

>>> BEGIN CAPTURE
FILE OCCULT/1589/PET-243
SUBJECT: Peter Stumpp werewolf trial
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source: 1590 London pamphlet translation.
sixteen pages. primary record of lost German original.
documents 1589 trial in Bedburg, near Cologne.
subject: local farmer Peter Stumpp (also Stubbe, Stumpf).
accused of witchcraft, cannibalism, lycanthropy.
confessed under torture to murdering fourteen children,
two pregnant women, incest, relations with succubus.
alleged magical girdle from Devil enabled wolf form.
execution date: October 31, 1589.
strapped to breaking wheel, flesh torn, limbs broken.
beheaded, body burned.
daughter Sybil and mistress Katherine burned at stake.
severed head mounted on pole next to wooden wolf effigy.
missing left hand linked to name and alleged forepaw.
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M. NOTE: They built a wooden beast to prove the flesh was real. Who
was the monument truly for?
>>> END CAPTURE