Episode 146 – Cabin in the Woods – Myths Your Teacher Hated

Episode 146 Show Notes

Source: German Folklore

Halloween Special

This week on MYTH, it’s once again time for the annual Halloween special. You’ll discover why you should never trust wandering strangers, why you should always handle eggs with care, and why you should be suspicious of unusual waterfowl. Then, in Gods and Monsters, we’ll travel to the city of Ansbach for a very real and very macabre story of magic and murder. This is the Myths Your Teacher Hated podcast, where I tell the stories of cultures from around the world in all of their original, bloody, uncensored glory. Modern tellings of these stories have become dry and dusty, but I’ll be trying to breathe new life into them. This is Episode 146, “Cabin in the Woods”. As always, this episode is not safe for work.
The leaves are turning and a chill is in the air, which can only mean one thing – Spooky Season is back! That’s right, it’s once again time for the annual Halloween Special. And when it comes to gruesome folklore, the Brothers Grimm are rightfully infamous. Thus it is that this week, we’re visiting the deep darkness of the German forest for a less well-known story that would make a solid modern day horror movie. Get on it, Hollywood.
Once upon a time, there lived a man with three beautiful daughters. They were a surprisingly happy family for the beginning of a fairy tale, which of course means it can’t last. There was a palpable aura of fear lying over the villages in the area and for good reason – beautiful young women were vanishing without a trace, never to be seen or heard from again. No one knew what was happening to them. There was never any sign of a struggle. Parents would simply come home to find that a beloved daughter was gone forever, leaving a gaping wound in the lives of those around them.
One day, there was a knock on the door and the eldest daughter answered. Given the rash of unexplained disappearances, she was cautious at first. Cracking the door slightly and peering out, she saw a bent, weak old beggar with a ragged basket on his back. He looked utterly harmless and hungry to boot, and the young woman had a good heart so she opened the door the rest of the way. “Could you spare a bit to eat for a poor, wretched old man?” Her family wasn’t terribly well off, but the kind young woman figured that they could spare a hunk of bread for a starving beggar.
She scurried into the kitchen to fetch it and then came back to the door, holding her humble offering out to the hunched old man. He smiled broadly with a decidedly unpleasant gleam in his eye as he reached out for it. The young woman began to have second thoughts about her charity but it was too late. Reaching for her wrist instead of the bread, the strange man touched her outstretched hand. As he did, the years seemed to fall away from him and his twisted spine straightened out to reveal a much younger, more powerful man who had simply disguised himself as a wretched beggar. The young woman tried to recoil from his deception but to her horror, she found she could not. Against her will, the young woman was forced to walk calmly over to the sinister stranger and climb into the basket on his back. She was trapped.
It turns out that the fake beggar was actually a wicked sorcerer. He used his disguise to convince compassionate young women to come close with an offering of charity. One touch to her bare skin and she was ensorcelled, forced to aid and abet her own kidnapping. With large strides and surprising strength, the wicked sorcerer carried the eldest daughter away into the forest. Deep in the shadowy depths of the woods stood his home, a large, splendid mansion that seemed out of place in the wildness of the forest.
At first, everything seemed more or less okay. You know, apart from being kidnapped by magic and kept in the heart of the woods with no idea how to get back home. The secret forest house was far finer than anything she had ever known before and the sorcerer offered her whatever might take her fancy. “I think you and I can be happy here, my dear. I can make your dreams come true in our forest home. You will have whatever your heart desires.” I mean, except for going home but no one is talking about that. This went on for a few days until the eldest daughter was sort of starting to feel comfortable with her new fucked up situation, but of course it couldn’t last. Nothing good lasts in these kinds of stories.
“My dear one, I have to go away for a few days, so you’ll be alone here in the house. Just for a short while, I promise. Here are the keys to the house,” he said, handing her an ornate ring of keys of varying sizes and styles. “These open every door in here, and you’re free to go into any room you like. Except one.” He gestured down the stairs towards a locked door she had never seen opened. “This little key here opens that door down there, but you absolutely must not use it! Do not go into that room, no matter what. It is forbidden on pain of death.” That brought a totally deserved shudder to the once-more frightened young woman. It sounded very, very ominous. And a little familiar. We’ve seen the forbidden room trope a few time before, such as in the Psyche and Eros story from way, way back when.
The sorcerer saw the pensive look on his captive’s face, and hurriedly changed the subject. From god only knows where, he next produced an egg. Hell, given that this guy has literal magic powers, it could just as easily have been actual magic as sleight of hand. “Take care of this egg while I’m gone too. You should keep it with you at all times since losing it will result in terrible misfortune.” This feels less horror movie and more middle school sex ed (did everyone do that weird project where you had to carry around an egg and pretend it was a baby?). This unexpected order was just confusing enough to distract the young woman from her earlier fear, and she took both the egg and keys with care, promising to take good care of the house and the egg while her captor was away. So yeah, this dude is definitely trying to get some good old fashioned Stockholm Syndrome going. Hey, it worked for Beauty and the Beast, right?
With a last pensive look, the sorcerer left the house and vanished into the shadows of the forest. As soon as she was sure he was gone, the young woman immediately began to explore the empty house. She’d been here a few days already, sure, but she’d spent that time being constantly concerned about what exactly her kidnapper had planned for her in his secret lair. So far, his plans had mostly consisted of sweet treats and shiny baubles, but that didn’t make her anxiety all that much better. Now that she was alone, she felt a lot more confident looking through every room in the manor.
She went through the entire place from top to bottom, and each room she visited was even grander than the last. Everything glistened with silver and gold, was inset with sparkling gems, or both. As far as gilded cages went, this one was pretty lux. It took her a day or two to go through everything, but soon enough there was nowhere left for her to explore. Well, almost nowhere. The young woman had initially passed by the forbidden room and, ever since completing the rest of her exploration, she’d tried to put that one last secret out of her mind. Unfortunately, her curiosity just kept eating away at her thoughts. Nothing could keep her distracted for very long, especially since she was all alone in this big house without much of anything to keep her occupied. After a quick peek out the main door to verify that the sorcerer wasn’t on his way back through the trees to the hidden manor, the young woman fished out the tiniest key on the ring.
Hands shaking slightly, she crept down to the forbidden door and twisted the key in the iron lock with a loud and forbidding click. At the same instant, the door sprang open beneath her hand on its own. Unlike every other room in the manor, which were all bright and clean and sparkling, this room was dark and dreary and full of cold shadows. A chill ran down her spine, but she’d come too far to back down now. Steeling her nerve, the young woman stepped into the forbidden room.
And immediately wished she hadn’t. As she entered, the gloom resolved itself into a chamber of horrors. A bitter, coppery smell filled the air and its source was immediately apparent – the enormous stone basin sitting at the center of the room was filled almost to the brim with bright blood. The floor all around it was stained with what was unmistakably more of the seemingly endless gore. Beside this gruesome thing stood a large, scarred wooden block with a wickedly sharp ax propped up against it. The aged wood was stained a dark, ugly color with what she more than suspected was old, dried blood.
Even as she stepped up to peer inside, she tried to rationalize that the sorcerer might have a big bucket of animal blood for some totally benign reason that she just couldn’t think of right now. As she reached the edge, she found definitive proof that there was definitely no benign reason for this shit. Bobbing around inside the basin were butchered body parts. Between the severed heads and butchered torsos soaked in the old blood, it was clear that she’d found the murdered corpses of all the missing young women.
Screaming in terror, the poor young woman clutched her throat and staggered back. Unfortunately, she couldn’t do that and hold on to the egg she was supposed to be watching at the same time. It fell from her nerveless fingers and plopped with a small, disgusting splash into the basin of blood. With a horrified squeak, the terrified young woman fished the egg back out. It was mercifully intact and unchipped, but it was also stained a deep crimson from the blood. Hurrying upstairs, she tried to scrub the blood off the egg with a rag, but it refused to yield. No matter how she rubbed and wiped, the egg would never be clean again.
She was still scrubbing furiously and futilely when she heard the front door open. The sorcerer had returned. “Honey, I’m home! Did you miss me?” Putting on a big smile she definitely didn’t feel, the young woman greeted her captor as calmly as she could. He cocked his head, seeming to sense that something was wrong. “The keys and the egg please.” She hesitated, and the sorcerer’s expression grew cold and hard. “The keys. And the egg. Now.” Trembling, she handed them over.
There was no missing the bright scarlet stain on the formerly pristine egg in her hand, and she watched something dark and terrible wash over the man’s expression. “You disobeyed me. I warned you not to go into that room, but you went in anyway against my will. Now you will go into that chamber again against your own will. You were told that the penalty of disobedience was death, and death it shall be. Your life is at an end.”
The young woman tried to run, tried to scream, but her body refused to obey her. She could only stand there and whimper as her kidnapper seized her by the hair and dragged her down the steps towards the still-open door to the execution chamber. Silent tears welled up in her eyes as he forced her to her knees beside the wooden chopping block, raised the ax, and took off her head. Her lifeblood sprayed out of the severed stump of her neck, staining the block, the floor, and the basin anew with fresh blood. He butchered her body with the cruel ax and tossed her severed limbs into the basin with the rest of the dead young women.
Sighing, the sorcerer cleaned the ax until it gleamed once more. Closing and locking the door behind him, he gathered up his poor beggar disguise once more. “So much for that. Oh well, it’s not like she was the only young woman out there. She’s got two younger sisters, so I guess it’s time to go get the second one.” And with that, he left the house hidden in the woods and returned to the village.
As before, he went and knocked on the door with his large beggar’s basket on his back. With the eldest sister mysteriously vanished like so many other young women in the area, it fell to the middle sister to answer the door. She hadn’t been around to see her older sister get kidnapped by the disguised sorcerer, so she wasn’t on guard against this murderous stranger. She saw only what her sister had seen – a helpless beggar in need of some simple charity. Being as kind-hearted as her sister had been, the middle daughter also hurried to the kitchen for a hunk of bread. And, like before, as she reached out to hand the offering over, the fake beggar took her wrist instead and used his power to control her mind. Helplessly, the terrified woman could only cry silently as her body walked outside and climbed into the man’s beggar basket despite her best efforts to stop it.
The next few days went exactly as you’re expecting them to. The sorcerer revealed himself as his younger, more powerful self and plied his frightened captive with delicious food, expensive clothes, and other luxuries to lull her into an uneasy acceptance of her new life trapped deep in the hidden forest manor. Just as she was starting to become a little more comfortable with the situation, the sorcerer announced that he was leaving for a few days. He handed over the ring of keys with the same warning about not entering the forbidden chamber that was opened with the smallest key, then he handed over the egg with the instructions about keeping it with her at all times lest something terrible happen.
As soon as the cruel sorcerer was gone, the middle sister explored the house from top to bottom except for the one forbidden chamber. She too did her best to ignore the siren’s call of its mysteries, but her curiosity was simply too strong. To be fair, she is probably worried that the man who, you know, fucking kidnapped her might be hidding some terrible secret in the one room she’s not allowed in and as we both know, she’s fucking right! Being right didn’t save her though. She too was horrified by the charnel house she found inside and, when she saw her own sister’s severed head screaming up at her from the basin of blood, a rictus of fear fixed on her dead face, she too dropped the egg. It was stained with her sister’s blood and refused to come clean. When the sorcerer returned, the stained egg gave the middle sister’s trespass away.
“You disobeyed me. I warned you not to go into that room, but you went in anyway against my will. Now you will go into that chamber again against your own will. You were told that the penalty of disobedience was death, and death it shall be. Your life is at an end.” She could only stand there and whimper as her kidnapper seized her by the hair and dragged her down the steps towards the still-open door to the execution chamber. Silent tears welled up in her eyes as he forced her to her knees beside the wooden chopping block, raised the ax, and took off her head. Her lifeblood sprayed out of the severed stump of her neck, staining the block, the floor, and the basin anew with fresh blood. He butchered her body with the cruel ax and tossed her severed limbs into the basin with the rest of the dead young women to join her sister.
Sighing, the sorcerer cleaned the ax until it gleamed once more. Closing and locking the door behind him, he gathered up his poor beggar disguise once more. “So much for that. Oh well, it’s not like she was the only young woman out there. There’s still one younger sister left, so I guess it’s time to go fetch her as well.” And with that, he left the house hidden in the woods and returned to the village.
As twice before, he went and knocked on the door with his large beggar’s basket on his back. With the two elder sisters mysteriously vanished like so many other young women in the area, it fell to the youngest sister to answer the door. She hadn’t been around to see either sister get kidnapped by the disguised sorcerer, so she wasn’t on guard against this murderous stranger. She saw only what her sisters had seen – a helpless beggar in need of some simple charity. Being as kind-hearted as they had been, the youngest daughter also hurried to the kitchen for a hunk of bread. And, like before, as she reached out to hand the offering over, the fake beggar took her wrist instead and used his power to control her mind. Helplessly, the terrified woman could only cry silently as her body walked outside and climbed into the man’s beggar basket despite her best efforts to stop it.
The next few days went exactly as you’re expecting them to. The sorcerer revealed himself as his younger, more powerful self and plied his frightened captive with delicious food, expensive clothes, and other luxuries to lull her into an uneasy acceptance of her new life trapped deep in the hidden forest manor. Just as she was starting to become a little more comfortable with the situation, the sorcerer announced that he was leaving for a few days. He handed over the ring of keys with the same warning about not entering the forbidden chamber that was opened with the smallest key, then he handed over the egg with the instructions about keeping it with her at all times lest something terrible happen.
But here’s where things go a little differently. See, the youngest sister was as kind as her two elder sisters were, but she was also a sly little minx (as youngest siblings often are). She too was curious to explore the house, but she couldn’t help but wonder about why she’d been given an egg to care for. As far as she could tell, there was absolutely nothing special about it – it was just an ordinary chicken egg. Her kidnapper hadn’t actually said that she had to keep the egg on her person at all times, just that he recommended it. As long as it was safe and secure, nothing bad would happen. And honestly, the egg would be a lot safer stashed somewhere soft and secure than in her hands all day.
Thus it was that she made a protective nest out of sheets and pillows in a closet, left the egg there, and began to explore. Unlike her sisters, she didn’t even bother trying to avoid looking in the forbidden room. Everything about this situation stank to high heaven, and having now joined both of her sisters among the missing, she had a sneaking suspicion that this kidnapping sorcerer was behind it all. He was clearly hiding something sinister in this house, and she intended to find out what. Maybe she could even find out what had happened to her missing sisters.
And, as we already know, her sisters’ corpses were indeed in the forbidden chamber. The youngest sister was justifiably horrified at this discovery, and she took a moment to have a good scream and a cry. In remarkably short order, she composed herself again and got to work. Her sisters had been brutally dismembered but, despite how long they had been soaking in old blood, they hadn’t rotted at all. Having seen first hand how much power the evil sorcerer wielded, she couldn’t help but wonder if there was more magic at work here. Hoping she still had time before he came home, she began pulling all the butchered pieces of her dead sisters out of the basin. Like some gruesome jigsaw puzzle, the youngest sister reassembled the bloody corpses on the floor of the charnel house until both were complete and in the proper order.
Once everything was assembled correctly, something magical did indeed happen. The severed limbs began to grow back together and move. Hands, arms, feet, legs, torso, head – after it had all reattached, the two dead girls opened their eyes and breathed once more. They lived again! And not in some cruel undead parody of life way, but like legitimately returned from the dead. The three sisters cried and hugged and rejoiced at this miracle. The youngest sister hadn’t forgotten the danger they were all very much still in, so after a few minutes of joyous weeping, she quieted them down and hid them away in a small closet. She had the beginnings of a plan, but there was still a lot she didn’t know about how the sorcerer’s powers worked. She’d need to wing it.
Before much longer, the sorcerer returned home and, as before, immediately asked his captive to return the keys and the egg. Unlike her sisters, the youngest woman was able to return both unstained. The wicked man examined them both very carefully and was pleased to find no trace of blood on either. Thus, he assumed that she had obeyed his commands to the letter (because obviously some young peasant woman couldn’t possibly outsmart a great sorcerer, right?). “You have passed my test, darling – you shall be my bride!” He said it like it was some great prize to marry the man who had kidnapped you and trapped you in a house in the woods isolated from literally all other people. Whoo, what a catch. And that’s in addition to, you know, all the murdering.
On the plus side, this declaration apparently ended any power this sorcerer had over her. He could no longer compel her to obey his wishes with a touch (which is why he had concocted this whole cruel test in the first place). The young woman could sense this shift in his demeanor and decided that this was her moment. “That’s amazing, beloved! I’m so happy to hear that. But if we’re going to be married, then I need you to take a basketful of gold to my parents as a dowry. It’s only proper, after all. You’ll need to carry it there in that great basket you brought me here in. While you’re off doing that, I’ll get everything ready for the wedding. There’s a lot to do to be ready for our big day!”
The sorcerer wasn’t entirely thrilled at being given chores in the first few moments of their betrothal, but it had taken a lot of time (and a lot of murdered women) to find a bride he could trust so it was a small price to pay to keep her happy. Happy wife, happy life, you know. While he went to freshen up and ready himself for the journey back to the village, the young woman hurried up to the closet where she had hidden her sisters. “Follow me, but be absolutely silent about it. I’ve got a plan to rescue us all.” She led them to the enormous basket and ushered them both inside, then covered them with gold coins and jewelry until they were entirely hidden beneath the precious metal. “Stay still and don’t make a sound. That evil man is going to carry you both back home himself, so don’t let him realize you’re here. Once you’re home safely, send help for me.”
Taking a last look to make sure nothing of her sisters could be seen, she called the vile sorcerer in. “Beloved, the dowry is ready! Carry this back to my parents and do not stop along the way for any reason, not even to rest. They’ll be worried about me, but this will put their minds at ease and let them know that everything is okay. I’ll watch you leave through the little window at the front of the house so that I can feel like I’m with you even while you’re gone and I’m getting the wedding ready. I’ll miss you while you’re away!” It was a total lie, but the sorcerer was a terrible judge of people. He was arrogant enough to assume he had completely broken her to his will and that she did indeed completely adore him. Stifling his grumbles, the sorcerer heaved the heavy basket onto his back with a grunt and made his plodding way out of the house and into the forest.
It’s honestly impressive that he’s able to carry the thing at all, let alone haul it all the way back to the village, but maybe he’s using magic to help. Plus, he’s had a lot of practice carrying baskets of women on his back. Never skip leg day, I guess. Even so, it was much heavier than any load he was used to and sweat was soon pouring down his face from the exertion. Glancing over his shoulder to make sure the house was out of sight, he eased the basket to the ground and collapsed against it with a groan.
Feeling the basket settle, the elder sister called out from inside the basket “I am looking through my little window and I can see you resting. You promised me you wouldn’t! Keep walking. For me?” She did an admirable impression of her sister (and the sorcerer had no reason to suspect that the two elder sisters were alive again), so he assumed it was his bride. I don’t know how he couldn’t tell that the voice was coming from the fucking basket rather than way off in the distance, but apparently he was easily fooled. Maybe he was so used to being the one doing the trickery that it never even occurred to him that someone else could be using cunning against him. Whatever the reason, he hurried back to his feet, reshouldered the basket, and plodded on.
Several times more, the exhausted sorcerer tried to stop and rest once he thought himself far enough away to avoid the watchful eye of his bride-to-be, but each time the elder sister called out to him “I am looking through my little window and I can see you resting. You promised me you wouldn’t! Keep walking. For me?”. Each time, he would be fooled and, with a long-suffering sigh, would take up his burden again and keep going. Eventually, aching and out of breath, he reached the girls’ home.
Back at the hidden manor, the youngest sister was making preparations for the wedding feast. She also sent out invitations to all of the sorcerer’s evil friends to attend the festivities. I have no idea who these people are, but I can only assume they are a motley assortment of fairy tale villains who all live in the deep forest for their own wicked reasons. Once the food was ready, she set up the decorations around the house. In pride of place was a grinning skull plucked from the basin of butchered bodies. She adorned this grisly thing with jewelry and a wreath of fresh flowers, then carried it to the highest window up in the attic (the one she had promised to watch from) to look out.
All of that done and in place, the young woman moved on to phase 3 of her plan. She went into the larder, pried open the barrel of honey, and ladled it all over herself until she was entirely covered in the sticky substance. Then she cut open one of the mattresses and rolled around in the feathers inside until she was so covered in them that she looked like an enormous bird, though a very strange one. Checking in the mirror to be sure that no one could recognize her, she walked out of the house.
As she was leaving, she soon encountered the sorcerer’s friends headed the other way for the supposed wedding. They saw her coming and were understandably confused as to who she was and where she was going. “Hey you! Fitcher’s bird! Where are you coming from?” According to the notes from the Grimm brothers, fitcher comes from the Icelandic fitfuglar (or swimming bird), which looked like a great white swan. Other scholars have disagreed and said that it comes instead from the Icelandic word fitfugal, meaning ‘web-footed bird’. Still others argue that it actually comes from the German word feder (feather) or fittich (wings). No one is entirely sure, and it doesn’t entirely matter. Just know that they are all convinced that the young escaping bride is indeed some kind of enormous waterfowl. Also, based on what happens next, it seems like the nameless sorcerer actually does have a name – Fitcher.
With a birdlike bob, the young woman replied “I am coming from Fitcher’s house, of course.” That was fairly obvious from the direction she was walking in, so it was clearly a true statement but it didn’t really answer the question they had implied. “Okay, sure, but what’s going on in Fitcher’s house? What is his young bride up to?” “Oh, she’s been busy cleaning and decorating the house as well as getting a wedding feast laid out. She’s done with all that now, so she’s up in the attic looking out the window and waiting for Fitcher to return.”
That seemed like a good enough answer (though it does absolutely nothing to explain why there’s a giant fucking bird walking through the woods but whatever, I guess). The guests, satisfied that all was in order, headed along their way and into the house. Soon enough, the disguised young woman met the man himself making his exhausted way back from the village without his basket. He’d made good time, so she was still well within sight of the hidden forest house. He too was curious about the unexplained giant bird here in the woods. “Hey you! Fitcher’s bird! Where are you coming from?” “I am coming from Fitcher’s house, of course.” “Ah yes, of course. And what’s going on in my house? What is my young bride up to?” “Oh, she’s been busy cleaning and decorating the house as well as getting a wedding feast laid out. She’s done with all that now, so she’s up in the attic looking out the window and waiting for you to return.”
At that, he glanced up towards the attic window and saw the decorated skull grinning hugely down at him. From this distance though, it looked enough like a happy, blushing bride that he didn’t question it. Smiling back, he waved at what he thought was his anxious fiance and hurried on into the house. It wasn’t very much longer before the young woman’s brothers arrived from the village. They had been warned by the two escaped sisters about the youngest’s plight and, gathering as many brave young men as they could, they’d hurried into the dark woods after the returning sorcerer. His path had been easy to follow, and now they stood here with the very strange bird.
Relieved, she identified herself as their sister and pointed them in the direction of the secret house. With grim determination, the men snuck up to the house and sealed all the doors shut. Setting guards at the few windows, they set the house alight. It caught easily and soon blazed like a torch in the dimness of the forest. Screaming in confusion and fear, the sorcerer and his band of wicked, fiendish friends were unable to escape the conflagration and burned to death one and all. And that’s a good end to bad rubbish.
This is about as close to a happy ending as you’re likely to get from a story from the Brothers Grimm. All three sisters are alive (two having returned from the dead), and the villain is dead, dead, dead. There are no lingering threats to worry about, just years of trauma and nightmares if I had to guess. If therapy were a thing back then, they’d all definitely need it. But hey – they won, more or less. And so, with everything basically back to normal (although there are still a lot of families whose daughters will not be returning from the dead), it’s time for Gods and Monsters. This is a segment where I get into a little more detail about the personalities and history of one of the gods or monsters from this week’s pantheon that was not discussed in the main story. This week’s monster is der wolf von Ansbach.
Literally translated as the Wolf of Ansbach, this furry critter terrorized the city of Ansbach in what was, in 1685, the Holy Roman Empire (and is now the German state of Bavaria). It started normally if bloodily enough with an enormous wolf prowling across the countryside and picking off some of the local sheep and cattle. That was pretty common at the time, so the beast was seen as more of a nuisance than the kind of supernatural threat worthy of a Halloween tale. So why are we talking about it? Well, for that story, we need to go back in time a few weeks.
See, the small but important city was led by their Burgermeister Michael Leicht zur Strafe. And while that title sounds like something your dad would insist you call him while he’s grilling after one too many beers, it’s actually a fairly important job. It translates to ‘master of the town’ and was essentially the chief magistrate or lord mayor for a city though with significantly more power than such a title carries today. Just because his job was important doesn’t mean he was well-liked. In fact, Burgermeister Leicht was downright hated. He was a cruel, vindictive man who governed with an iron fist and was therefore deeply unpopular amongst the citizenry that he ruled over. When he died in 1685, presumably of natural causes, no one shed a tear. In fact, it was practically celebrated. Ding dong the witch is dead and all that.
So what does that have to do with that wolf that was attacking the livestock? Nothing, until the wolf decided that cows and sheep simply weren’t satisfying its craving for flesh any longer. A local child who had been playing in the woods around town went missing. His mangled corpse was found not long thereafter, ripped to bloody shreds by what was unmistakably a wolf attack. After that, the wolf went from normal nuisance to supernatural menace. This was clearly no ordinary wolf, but a werewolf.
For some important context here, the widespread belief in werewolves in Europe spread in parallel with that of witches during the Late Middle Ages and Early Modern periods. And, much like their more famous witch trials, werewolf trials became a widespread and deadly phenomenon in the early 15th century. They peaked around the 17th century before finally fading away in the 18th century. While there were never as many trials or as many accused of being werewolves as there were witches, there were still hundreds to possibly thousands of people prosecuted on the charge of being a shapeshifter who mutilated and devoured children. Thus it was that, when this particular wolf began killing kids, people immediately became suspicious that it was actually a human murderer in wolf’s clothing.
Coupled with multiple sightings of a large black wolf in the area and growing stories of the beast’s unnatural cunning and ferocity, the people were sure this was a werewolf. And, what’s more, they were sure they knew who the culprit was – none other than our dear departed Burgermeister Leicht. Whispered rumors said that this vile man had eluded death by transferring his soul into the form of a wolf, either by taking over a formerly normal wolf or by transforming his spirit through satanic magic. Reports surfaced of people claiming to have seen Leicht attending his own funeral. Some anonymous printer passed around a woodcut flyer of a wolf wrapped in a white funeral shroud returning to his former home to terrorize the inhabitants.
Clearly, this threat could not be ignored. A werewolf hunt was organized. Not only was such a hunt necessary to protect the children of Ansbach, it also gave the still very angry citizens a chance for some bloody vengeance on the much-hated Burgermeister. Word went out of the coming hunt, drawing not only locals but some experienced hunters from the wider area. These professionals brought with them some tried and true tactics for hunting wolves (who are much, much bigger and much, much deadlier than most people think). One of the most common strategies was the use of a wolfsgrube, or a wolf pit not unlike something you’ve likely seen in the movies. A deep hole is dug and then the entrance is covered with thin branches and straw to camouflage the trap. Often a rooster would be placed at the bottom as bait.
Once the wolfsgrube was prepared, hunting parties would spread out through the woods with their weapons and their hunting dogs to flush out their quarry. The people scoured the woods for several days of intense, exhaustive searching before the elusive werewolf was finally located. They attempted to drive the beast towards one of the waiting traps, but it fled towards an abandoned well in a desperate attempt to escape its pursuers. This proved to be a fatal mistake as the well functioned more or less like a wolfsgrube, and the cornered wolf was killed. Threat ended, story over right? Not quite.
Remember those trials I mentioned? You can’t exactly put a corpse on trial for murder, but you can apparently come pretty damned close. The slain wolf was brought back to Ansbach, skinned, had its muzzle hacked off, and was dressed up in human clothing – a flesh-colored suit, a human-looking cardboard mask, a wig, and a fake beard – to look like the dead Burgermeister Leicht. This macabre trophy was then paraded through the city streets as a display of the triumph of the people over their hated ruler and supernatural scourge, as well as to reassure a very scared populace that the threat was indeed over. The parade ended at a gibbet in the town square where the dressed-up corpse was hanged in a faux execution. The slain werewolf was left there, swinging from its noose, for several days until everyone in town had their chance to come and curse the hated name of Burgermeister Leicht. When it was finally cut down, the body was preserved and put on permanent display at the local museum.
This is just one of a number of famous historical werewolves, though certainly one of the more unusual and macabre. Most followed the more common script of the witch trials, with outsiders and mistrusted individuals accused of and tortured into confessions of being werewolves. This often came in the wake of very real wolf attacks, who were forced to hunt amongst the humans as they encroached upon the beast’s territory and often picked off the smaller, weaker, and easier to hunt children. Some claimed to have been given a magical belt from Satan himself, while others claimed a demon or a mysterious man in black had given them a magic salve. Most were then tortured and then brutally and very publicly executed to discourage any further black magic usage amongst the people (as well as to allay fears of a wolf stalking the local children). So if a mysterious black-clad stranger offers you a magical belt this Halloween season, it’s probably best to say no.
That’s it for this episode of Myths Your Teacher Hated. Keep up with new episodes on our Facebook page, on iTunes, on TuneIn, on Vurbl, and on Spotify, or you can follow us on Twitter as @HardcoreMyth, on Instagram as Myths Your Teacher Hated Pod, and on Tumblr as MythsYourTeacherHated. You can also find news and episodes on our website at myths your teacher hated dot com. If you have any questions, any gods or monsters you’d want to learn about, or any ideas for future stories that you’d like to hear, feel free to drop me a line. I’m trying to pull as much material from as many different cultures as possible, but there are all sorts of stories I’ve never heard, so suggestions are appreciated. The theme music is by Tiny Cheese Puff.
Next time, it’s off to India for a much earlier version of Tarzan. You’ll discover that fig trees are psychic, that tigers like to use babies for hunting practice, and that stealing fire from a giant is more challenging than it seems. Then, in Gods and Monsters, a husband and wife will discover that they love pancakes. Probably a bit too much. That’s all for now. Thanks for listening.