by Graeme Davis
The ‘Wolf Dance’ of the Kaviagamutes. This Eskimo tribe was renowned for producing shamanic werewolves in the 19th century. (Library of Congress)
Identification and Threat
Almost all trained shamans forge strong ties to their home area and to the animal and other spirits that dwell there. They are seldom, if ever, active outside their home range, and in traditional societies their neighbors almost always know who the shamans are.
The strongest indicator that a case of lycanthropy is shamanic in nature is the fact that the human body remains behind in a deep, coma-like sleep. Experienced shamans know that their abandoned bodies are highly vulnerable while in this state, and usually take great pains to ensure their safety.
So long as a possessed animal continues to act normally, it is almost impossible to determine whether it is a shamanic werewolf or a normal wolf. It takes a trained shaman to recognize another shaman inside the animal’s body. There are some behavioral clues – leaving the pack and the home range and traveling in a straight line toward some apparent destination, for example – but these are seldom unambiguous.
By and large, shamanic werewolves are the least dangerous – and the least often detected – of all werewolf types; they simply carry out the shaman’s business and return to being normal wolves. However, they can become a threat under certain circumstances.
A small bear, supposedly inhabited by a Siberian shaman. (Library of Congress)
The most common threat arises when an untrained talent accidentally possesses a wolf’s body and panics. This is often complicated further by the wolf’s spirit trying to keep control of its body and panicking in its turn. The wolf will be unpredictable and aggressive, lashing out at anyone who comes near and sometimes even snapping at its own limbs and tail as the two spirits fight. The best defense in this situation is to keep one’s distance and wait for the situation to resolve itself.
A worse danger comes from an unscrupulous or offended shaman who uses the form of a wolf to spread fear or exact revenge. While this is a common motif in horror fiction, it is a far rarer occurrence in real life. In most shamanic traditions, individuals who are arrogant or vengeful are weeded out during the early stages of training. However, it has been known to happen.
Urban shamans are becoming increasingly common, and their behavior can differ significantly from that of traditional shamans. They are more likely to take wolves out of their natural habitat, and to become addicted to the “rush” of inhabiting the body of an animal with enhanced senses and superior physical abilities. They are also more likely than traditional shamans to act out of pride or anger, leaving fear and damage in their wake.
Elimination and Prevention
In cases of shamanic lycanthropy, the wolf’s physical nature is unaffected by the presence of a human consciousness. The creature is just as vulnerable to weapons and other dangers as it is in its natural state. Silver bullets will wound it and wolfsbane will poison it, but their effects are no more deadly than usual and the creature shows no enhanced resistance to normal weapons.
The most effective response to a shamanic werewolf is to eject the human spirit from the wolf’s body. Once this is accomplished, the wolf normally flees and the shaman can be dealt with. Killing the wolf will eject the shaman’s spirit, as will non-lethal measures such as tasers and tranquilizer darts. It can also be accomplished non-violently by another shaman who is more powerful that the one inhabiting the wolf.
ANIMAL POSSESSION
Rarer than shamanic lycanthropy, but far from unknown, is the phenomenon of animal possession. In these cases, a human is possessed by the spirit of an animal – most often an apex predator like a wolf or bear. The human then moves and acts like the animal until the possession is thrown off.
It is far from certain how animal possession occurs. The members of some wolf cults actively seek to be possessed, but in most reported cases the phenomenon seems to be accidental and the animal spirit is surprised and panicked to find itself inside a human body and surrounded by human beings. It will often seek to escape, lashing out violently at anyone who tries to stop it.
To the untrained eye, animal possession can look a lot like obsessive lycanthropy, but in cases of animal possession it is less common for the human host to retain any memory of events that occurred while he or she was possessed.
The greatest challenge in a case of shamanic lycanthropy is to identify the shaman, especially if he or she does not want to be found.
In traditional societies, where shamans practice openly and everyone knows a great deal about their neighbors, the list of suspects is normally a short one. However, it can be very difficult for outside agencies to gain the trust of a traditional community and persuade its members to cooperate in an investigation. Most often, the community deals with a rogue shaman in its own way – sometimes long before outside investigators even arrive on the scene.
It is a great deal harder to identify and locate a werewolf shaman in an urban setting. Many urban shamans – especially those from Anglo communities – are secretive about their activities and not well known to their neighbors. Many are semi-trained or entirely self-taught, and not all have the skill or even the desire to control their abilities.
Another shaman can pick up a trace of the possessing shaman’s spirit by examining a possessed wolf, and follow that trace back to its source. However, this technique is not always successful, especially if the werewolf shaman is more powerful than the tracking shaman. There are ways to mask one’s identity, and there have even been cases where a werewolf shaman has launched psychic attacks from a possessed wolf in order to prevent discovery.
Overall, the most effective technique has been old-fashioned detective work. The culprit can usually be identified by examining the behavior of the possessed wolf, determining motive, and narrowing down a range of suspects. Once this has been accomplished, the shaman can be apprehended using standard techniques and equipment such as tasers and handcuffs.
Leads the Wolf, a shaman of the Crow Nation in the late 19th century, was a famous teacher and supposedly trained an entire generation of shamanic werewolves. (Library of Congress)
The ability to shift into the form of an animal – often a cat, a hare, or various kinds of bird – was a well-known ability of witches in medieval Europe, and the transcripts of many European werewolf trials describe a similar process.
Some anthropologists believe that – in Europe at least – this kind of shapeshifting is derived from the shamanism of the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic eras, as were various other aspects of medieval and later witchcraft. Be that as it may, there is a very definite difference between the shamanic process described in the previous chapter and the sorcerous lycanthropy described in medieval trials.
Like other kinds of werewolves, shapeshifting witches were hunted down with great determination by medieval sheriffs and inquisitors. The European witch hysteria of the 16th and 17th centuries brought them to the brink of extinction. By the 19th century, they were almost unknown outside the remotest parts of Europe and the wildest, most untamed colonies. Over the last hundred years or so, though, sorcerous lycanthropy has made a comeback.
Interest in witchcraft and other forms of traditional magic has grown steadily since the publication of Margaret Murray’s seminal book The Witch-Cult in Western Europe in 1921. Over the next 20 years, organizations like the German Ahnenerbe, the British Talbot Group, and the FXU (Field Experimental Unit) of the American Office of Strategic Services (OSS) researched shapeshifting and other forms of witchcraft to assess their possible strategic usefulness. In the 1960s, the dawning of the “Age of Aquarius” heralded a resurgence of civilian interest in traditional religions and magic, laying the foundation for the New Age and neo-pagan movements of recent decades.
Like viral lycanthropes, sorcerous lycanthropes can learn to control their shapeshifting and assume the hybrid “wolf man” form. This seems to be a fairly recent development, though, since the bipedal form is ne
ver mentioned in reports of sorcerous lycanthropy before the 20th century. It has even been suggested that shapeshifting witches were inspired to develop this form by its popularity in the werewolf movies of the 1930s and 1940s, which made the wolf man an iconic image capable of striking fear into people worldwide.
A contemporary depiction of the crimes, capture, and execution of Peter Stumpf, the ‘Werewolf of Bedburg’, who ran amok in 16th century Germany. (Mary Evans)
Case Studies
Besançon, 1521
In December 1521, shepherds Pierre Burgot and Michel Verdun confessed before the Inquisitor-General of Besançon in eastern France that they had used a mysterious salve to become wolves. Burgot confessed that 19 years previously, while collecting his scattered flock after a storm, he encountered three black-clad horsemen riding black steeds. On the promise that he would recover all of his flock unharmed, Burgot renounced God and swore allegiance to the lead horseman, whom he assumed to be a demon and who gave his name as Moyset. He was inducted into a coven of warlocks, of which Verdun was also a member. The two confessed to killing several women and children, mating with she-wolves, and slaughtering livestock. Verdun was captured after being wounded while attacking a traveler in his wolf form. Following the wolf’s trail, the traveler came to Verdun’s hut and found the shepherd inside, with his wife bathing a wound that was identical to the one he had inflicted on the wolf.
Burgot and Verdun were executed along with a third werewolf named Philibert Montot. There is no record that their master Moyset was ever found.
Dole, 1572
One of the most celebrated European werewolf cases was that of Gilles Garnier, the “Werewolf of Dole.” In late 1572, several children went missing or were found dead in and around the French town of Dole, not far from Besançon. One evening a group of workers came upon what they took to be a wolf, but turned out to be Garnier crouched over the body of a child.
At his trial, Garnier, a recluse who lived alone with his wife some distance from the town, testified that he had been having difficulty in feeding his wife and himself when he was approached by a “spectre” that offered him an ointment that would turn him into a wolf, allowing him to hunt more easily. He confessed to killing and eating at least four children who were between the ages of 9 and 12, and he was burned at the stake on January 18, 1573.
Bedburg, 1589
Peter Stumpf (also spelled Stubbe, Stumpp, and otherwise by various writers) terrorized the area around Bedburg, near Cologne, and met a grisly fate even for an accused witch. English writer Richard Rowlands describes it in his 1605 book A Restitution of Decayed Intelligence:
One Peeter Stump for being a were-wolf, and having killed thirteen children, two women, and one man; was at Bedbur not far from Cullen in the year 1589 put unto a very terrible death. The flesh of divers partes of his body was pulled out with hot iron tongs, his armes thighes & legges broke on a wheel, and his body lastly burnt. He dyed with very great remorce, desyring that his body might not be spared from any torment, so that his soule might be saved.
According to a pamphlet circulated in England in 1590:
The Devill who sawe him [Stumpf] a fit instrument to perfourm mischeefe as a wicked fiend pleased with the desire of wrong and destruction, gave unto him a girdle which being put about him, he was straight transfourmed into the likenes of a greedy devouring woolf… And no sooner should he put off the same girdle, but presently he should apeere in his former shape, according to the proportion of a man.
The same pamphlet reports that Stumpf lived as a werewolf for 25 years, killing and eating both humans and livestock and evading all attempts to capture him. Finally, Stumpf found himself closely pursued and slipped off his girdle, resuming his human form in an attempt to deceive his pursuers. However, he was seen by one of the hunters and arrested.
Creation
Sorcerous lycanthropy depends on sympathetic magic, and the change of form cannot be achieved without specific ingredients. One is absolutely indispensable: a wolf skin, or a belt made from wolf skin. The second is a salve made of various ingredients, usually including psychoactive plants like belladonna and psilocybin mushrooms. The composition of this salve suggests that sorcerous lycanthropy involves hallucination rather than actual shapeshifting, but several centuries’ worth of eyewitnesses have been absolutely certain that the werewolf changed his or her form, sometimes before their eyes.
In the medieval and early modern periods, werewolves are often associated with the stealing or killing of children. Modern research has revealed no special connection between werewolves and the kidnapping of children. (North Wind Picture Archives / Alamy)
While sorcerous lycanthropy does not require the same level of training and discipline as the shamanic variety, almost all reports agree that the technique is not an innate skill and the neophyte must be taught how to perform the change. In medieval trial transcripts, the accused werewolf has almost always been inducted into a coven or made a pact with a “dark stranger,” who provides the salve and skin as well as instruction in the technique of shapeshifting.
Richard Rowlands has the following to say about the process of transformation:
The were-wolves are certaine sorcerers, who having annoynted their bodyes, with an oyntment which they make by the instinct of the devil; and putting on a certaine enchanted girdel, do not only unto the view of others seeme as wolves, but to their own thinking have both the shape and nature of wolves, so long as they wear the said girdel. And they do dispose themselves as very wolves, in wurrying and killing.
Identification and Threat
The keys to sorcerous lycanthropy are the animal skin or belt and the salve. Subjects normally keep these well hidden, but a search of a suspect’s house or the base of a werewolf coven will normally lead to their discovery.
Medieval inquisitors believed that all cases of lycanthropy were due to witchcraft, and the Catholic Church has yet to officially recognize the existence of viral werewolves. Despite this, the werewolf-hunting Order of St. Cuthbert has been active since at least 1760 under the aegis of the Inquisition.
Documents in the Vatican’s archives include transcripts of hundreds of werewolf trials, most of them from Italy, France, and Germany between the 12th and 16th centuries. Some scholars believe there was a significant outbreak of lycanthropy in Western Europe at that time, but others disagree. The frequent witch-hunts of the period would naturally have led to a higher rate of werewolf detection. It may also be significant that almost all documented trials relate to cases of sorcerous lycanthropy, suggesting that other types of werewolf escaped the Inquisition’s notice.
A wolf pelt is essential for a cursed werewolf to be able to transform. (North Wind Picture Archives / Alamy)
If these items are discovered, they constitute conclusive proof that a case involves sorcerous lycanthropy rather than any other kind. Until that time, however, it is necessary to rely on traditional investigative techniques.
Like shamanic lycanthropes, wolf-witches tend to operate within a limited home range, especially if they are part of a coven. Neophytes are often dependent on their superiors for the transformation salve, and personal bonds between coven members tend to keep them together.
Within their home range, though, sorcerous lycanthropes can be as much of a threat as any other kind. Attacks are often limited to the working out of personal disputes with neighbors, employers, and other acquaintances, but they can become considerably more widespread and deadly if the group is ideologically motivated. In this case, targets may include religious groups and buildings, local government officials and their offices, and others.
Over the last two decades or so, loggers and land developers have become a frequent target of werewolf covens. The alignment of wicca and neo-paganism with the environmental movement has led to werewolves taking part in several documented acts of ecoterrorism, ranging from the intimidation of work crews and planning officials to sabotage, assault, and murder. There have also been well-do
cumented attacks on the homes and churches of fundamentalist religious figures, politicians, CEOs, and others who are seen as leading members of “the 1 percent” and are also targeted by more conventional activist groups such as the Occupy movement.
Recent cooperation between activists, wiccans, and werewolf covens has led to this class of lycanthropy being upgraded to “most urgent” by many governments. Even as they officially deny the existence of witches and werewolves, governments and military contractors worldwide are actively developing equipment and tactics to identify and neutralize them.
Elimination and Prevention
Arguably the most important tactics used against wolf covens by governments around the world are infiltration and destabilization. In this respect, these groups are treated in much the same way as other activist and terrorist breeding grounds.
A contemporary depiction of the Werewolf of Ansbach, which terrorized the Principality of Ansbach in 1685. Most authorities cite this as the most famous historical example of a cursed werewolf, although a lack of evidence means it could have been sourcerous.
Deep-cover operations lasting several years are necessary to win the trust and acceptance of a werewolf coven, and this can be particularly challenging for the agents involved. However, at the time of writing the global success rate of this approach is still deemed high enough to be acceptable. Agents placed in allied groups and tasked with getting close to a werewolf coven and discovering its base of operation have proven to be more reliable than agents placed directly inside the coven itself. Some direct-approach agents never win their way into the coven, and some – a noticeably higher proportion than in similar operations elsewhere – “go native,” betraying their commanders and becoming loyal members of the target group.
