In today’s episode Chris brings you the story of Peter Stumpp, AKA the Werewolf of Bedburg. But before that, we discuss this month’s great planetary alignment, ghost islands in the sea, and an update about the Slender Man attacker.

THE NEWS:

-The Great Planetary Alignment

-Ghost Island

-Slender Man Attacker

TRANSCRIPTION:

Hello, Probably Cursed listeners. In today’s episode, Chris brings you the story of Peter Stump, aka the Werewolf of Bedburg. But before that, we discuss this month’s great planetary alignment. Ghost Islands in the Sea, and an update about the Slender Man attacker. I’m your host, Sheryl.

And this is Chris. As we do at the start of every episode, we calibrate our cursometer, our super fantastical, futuristic device that allows us to determine the cursiveness of all things. We calibrate it by feeding it the news from recent articles that we find online, or weird, quirky, or, you know, just a little bit enough to make you stop and wonder. So, we’ll feed in the first new story here.

So this article is titled, A Rare Alignment of Seven Planets is About to Take Place in the Sky. This is from January 8th, 2025, by Michelle Starr for ScienceAlert.com. On February 28th, seven of the Solar Systems planets will appear in the night sky at the same time, with Saturn, Mercury, Neptune, Venus, Uranus, Jupiter, and Mars all lining up in the neat row.

And if you crouch down, you can fit in Earth in there too.

Any number of planets from three to eight constitutes an alignment. Five or six planets assembling is known as a large alignment, with five planet alignments significantly more frequent than six. Who did the stats on this? I mean, I guess it’s important to know the stats on how many planet alignments is…

What is most common? They just got chatGPT to do it.

That’s right. So seven planet alignments is called a great planet alignment, which is the rarest of all, and the one that coincidentally is occurring.

Yep, at the end of this month, make sure you set out your lawn chairs and watch all those twinkling, colorful stars in the sky.

And if you believe in astrology or you’re part of a cult, it may meet the end of the world.

It’s true. I can’t wait to see all the conspiracy theory tiktoks that appear out of this.

Yeah, this occurs because the planets of the solar system all orbit the sun on a flat plane. It doesn’t mean we’re flat Earth. No, it just means there’s a flat plane in space. It just means the airplanes flat.

That’s correct. Some of the planets have orbits that are tilted slightly above or below this plane, but they’re all more or less on the same level, like grooves on a record, thanks to the way the stars like our sun form. So occasionally the planets will be on the same side of the sun as they move along their orbits, so we get to see them in the sky all at the same time.

Which also equates to some sort of paranormal apocalypse that will happen at the end of the month, I’m sure. Someone will figure out what it is.

It’s a good thing Hollywood did not get wind of this before this point because we would have some sort of planetary disaster movie based on the alignment of the seven planets.

It’s true. Some Roland Emmerich Independence Day 2012. What would you call? You can’t call it the planetary alignment. That’s not an exciting title.

What did they say?

Though I suppose 2012 isn’t that exciting a title either.

Yeah, the Great Alignment.

The Great Alignment. Will mankind survive the Great Alignment?

I mean, it sounds a little bit more like a Discovery Channel special, but…

So Sheryl’s put in the first news story into the Cursometer. I will add in the second news story. A Ghost Island has emerged from the sea overnight. This is from January 15th by Darren Orff for Popular Mechanics. Sheryl is the one who found this article.

I’ve been working with my feed on my laptop at work to try to get the news feed to feed me random stories, and this came up, so it’s working!

It’s already understanding that you want the word ghost in your articles. That’s correct. Azerbaijan is the world capital of mud volcanoes. The country is home to roughly 300 mud volcanoes, both on land and in the Caspian Sea just along its eastern shore. In November of 2024, a geologist posted about the appearance of a peekaboo, or ghost island, that likely emerged sometime between January 30th and February 4th of last year, according to satellite images.

We need a clip for our podcast where I can just hit peekaboo, and it’s the cockatiel saying peekaboo, because that was the first thing I thought of.

I bet I have. You have a clip somewhere.

The geologist wrote, A violent eruption can release enough material to push the crest of the mud volcano above the surface, creating a new island. These eruptions are short, minutes, sometimes hours, but incredibly violent. And in Azerbaijan, are often associated with pillars of flames, 500 to 1000 meters high. Sounds exciting. Who would have thought that mud could be so exciting?

Geologists everywhere are screaming at their computers.

Mud is exciting! Last week, NASA posted images of the ghost island. True to its name, the crest of the volcano just peaked above the waterline in early 2023, stretching to a maximum size of 400 meters before receding almost completely by the end of 2024. NASA notes that the area has had eight previously recorded eruptions, with the largest occurring in 1950, creating an island 700 meters, so twice as much across and almost 6 meters high. I find it amazing that an island can suddenly appear within the space of a few hours, the geologist wrote. You’d think that some fisherman would have gone W2F, that island was in there yesterday, and posted some photos online. A new approximately 10 hectare island just appears one day and no one even cares.

Well, I care. I care too, sir.

This reminds me of the HP Lovecraft story. I think it was Dagon. There’s sailors at sea, and then suddenly an island rises up and beaches their boat. I guess it’s beaches, even if a mud island erupts underneath you.

Yeah. And so they get up and they walk around and they look and they find all of these ancient temples to creepy fish gods. I hope somebody walked around the ghost island to see if there was any fish god creepy temples on there too.

I wonder how often this happens. Like it says happened in 1950, but like does this happen every, I don’t know, ever. That was 80 years ago? Yeah, 80 years. Better. We’ll find out I guess in…

80 years from now? Yeah. The year would be, it would be the next century marker. Okay. That would be 2100. Okay. Star Trek times. Excellent. And Sheryl will feed our cursor. The third and final story for calibration.

Slender Man attacker set to be released after seven years in Wisconsin mental hospital. This is from January 10th by David Kay Lee, Haley Leukewsowitz and Eva Kelly for NBC News. A judge ruled that Morgan Geiser of Wisconsin, who at age 12 conspired with a friend to brutally stab a classmate to death to appease the horror character Slender Man, is well enough to be released from a psychiatric hospital. She spent nearly seven years inside the Winnebago Mental Health Institute and is now set to be moved to a group home where her mental health would be continued to be monitored. Three medical experts testify that Geiser has made considerable progress convincing Judge Brohun that she doesn’t pose a safety risk outside the hospital walls. There’s nothing to suggest that she’s a danger to herself or to others. And I think there’s very little at this point that the Winnebago can do for her. I like how you had to put in brackets mental health hospital.

Uh-huh. They just didn’t put her in a Winnebago

for over a year. I was going to say. That would be, uh, that would cause more mental health problems than it would solve.

It didn’t come out when you’re not crazy.

Yeah, so the Winnebago Mental Health Institution. Um, and that’s what they would say as well. I think it’s in her best interest and in everybody else’s interest to try help her now become a person she can become. So Dr. Kenneth Robbins, a psychiatrist treating Geiser. I think there’s a risk that over time, if limited by the things that Winnebago can offer her, I could imagine her becoming hopeless at some point and potentially becoming a danger to herself. So yes, perhaps ironically, I think she would be safer outside of Winnebago.

Free her from the Winnebago.

Yeah, cheese. Let her out of the RV. It feels like an unfortunate name for a psychiatric hospital.

I’m sure it has like a grandiose original meaning. And then some RV company just sort of just made it seem kitschy.

Yeah, I actually wonder if it might be an indigenous word.

Right, Charles. Looking up the word origin for Winnebago.

Yeah, so it actually is a term used to describe a member of the Suan speaking people, formerly living in Wisconsin, south of the Green Bay area. So it’s an indigenous community. Okay. Yeah, and it also looks like the vehicle itself, the Winnebago itself, is named after the Winnebago River.

And the river was named after the people. I would assume so, yes. Or the people also named after the river.

Don’t know. I also wonder if maybe there is a community that’s also named after the river, which is why it’s the Winnebago Mental Health Institute. Anyway, back on topic. Forensic psychologist Deborah Collins agreed, saying that keeping Geyser at the Winnebago could only set her back. Her compliance in the institution is remarkable, both with medication and with treatment, lack of behavioral management problems in the institution, or lack of violence towards other in the institution and towards herself. Those all bode well for her readiness to for conditional release at this time. Certainly for Miss Geyser, the longer she’s here at this point, I think the more challenging it is going to be to reintegrate into society.

As psychologist Brooke Lundborm testifies that Geyser has responded well to be removed from antipsychotic medications. Geyser and a friend lured a classmate to a park in May of 2014 to launch a violent attack. Geyser repeatedly stabbed the classmate as a friend egged her on. Prosecutors said that they believed they had to attack the girl or risk slenderman, a fictional boogeyman, from coming after their families.

All three girls were aged 12 at the time and the victim barely survived. Geyser’s friend spent nearly four years at the Winnebago Mental Health Institute before being released in 2021. While the judge on Thursday called the 2014 stabbing brutal, they also said that Geyser has shown she is ready to reintegrate into society. She’s done what she’s supposed to do. She appears to have a good attitude.

Good for her. We can all turn things around.

Yeah, poor girl. If you get a chance, you should watch the documentary about it. It’s pretty eye-opening.

Do you remember what the documentary was called?

Yeah, it’s called Beware the Slenderman. Beware. It’s a really good documentary.

So we have our three news stories submitted to the Curseometer for calibration. We’ll get it to decide how cursed these news stories are. All right, Curseometer, activate. Please stand by.

The Curseometer says for the great planetary alignment to occur at the end of this month. Probably benign. Yep, a bunch of lights in the sky.

Planets probably align all the time and we have no idea.

There are probably other planets aligning in places we can’t even see them.

Yeah, so I don’t know. I don’t take stock and it being anything either. I agree with the Curseometer on this.

If you see anyone on social media claiming otherwise, scam. Scamme, scamme.

Yeah, probably cursed at that point. Stay away.

People saying anything other than the most boring explanation of seven lights in the sky.

They’re the people to avoid.

Those are the cursed people. Okay, and our second news story about… Ghost Island. About the Ghost Island off the coast of Azure by Jean also says probably benign.

Yeah, it islands form and disappear all the time. Although I’m slightly concerned that it only took a year to disappear. Like this… That was made of mud. It’s made of mud. Yeah, I guess it washed away.

It melted. Yeah, melted. I tried to find if anyone had actually set foot on the island and I couldn’t find anything. So I think that if there were creepy fish god towers and ancient ruins, nobody got to see them before they were gone.

No. Don’t worry, they’ll come back.

Another 80 years. Yeah. And the Curseometer says for our third news story about the slender man attacker being released from the psychiatric Winnebago hospital, Curseometer says probably blessed. Yeah, she’s on her time. She’s been rehabilitated.

Yeah, she’s been working with Zycall just to figure out her problem. I think she’s good.

Yeah, she doesn’t need to be on the medication anymore. Yep. Can be trusted to live amongst the people.

And not even that, she’s not fully released. She’s going to be staying at a group home. So she’s still going to be monitored. Yeah. No issues.

Yep, they don’t just kick her out the door. No. No. Our Curseometer is fully calibrated. Before we head over to the main topic, we’re going to take a quick trip over to the probably Curse Museum and gift shop for today’s artifact being released on our shop.

So today’s artifact is artifact number 16. It’s a red riding hood topsy-turvy doll. So one side of the doll is red riding hood. And the other side of the doll is the grandmother.

I believe so. Pretty sure. Either that or old red riding hood. Old riding hood.

Yeah, the doll appears to be handmade. And Chris and I found it at our local antique mall. So quick shout out to the Old Strathconi antique mall. Yep. We like to go there on a Saturday or Sunday and poke around.

We were just there yesterday for recording. It’s a good time. We didn’t find anything creepy yesterday, but this is from our previous trip.

I mean, we did find creepy things, but they were like $600.

That’s true. So. Maybe once we hit the big times.

That’s right. Once you guys send us all the money and we start making a little bit more, we can buy some of the actual creepy.

That’s true. Yeah. Once we start making Zach Baggins money.

Yes, that’s right. So the red riding hood side is dressed in the typical red cape and dress. But the grandmother side looks like something out of 70s. She’s in like a blue and green tie dyed floral print dress. The faces are kind of drawn on with what appears to be marker.

Yeah, some sort of fabric marker. I’m just looking at it. We got it on the table here with us. Yeah. Tie dye. Yeah.

I have no other way of putting it. Those are giant roses on there.

Yeah, same time. No sea cuffs. Yeah. And I think the hair is yarn. I can’t 100% tell, but. It looks yarny. Yeah. Her hair looks like, yeah. Yeah. Definitely yarny.

Yeah, okay. Freddie seemed very interested in it yesterday when we were carrying it around to take photos.

Was he more or less interested in this than the jester you’re playing with?

Definitely less interested than in the jester. Okay. Yeah. For those of you who are interested, we actually did record a video of our, we tried a session with this doll. See if we could get some.

Yeah, if you check on our social media, as you will see us, we have Ghost Radio. We had our EMF detector. We had the Ouija board there just to let them know we wanted to talk.

And the Spirit Talker app that we brought up in a previous episode where the guy said he kept hearing that things were buried under the house. Yep.

Yeah. In Star Trek terms, we were hailing on all frequencies.

Yes, correct. If you’re interested in bringing this handmade childhood item into your household, you can check out our probably your store at probablycursed.etsy .com. And yes, our store is back up and running, at least until Canada Post goes on strike again.

That’s right. If you’re listening to this right now and you’re sort of waffling on what you want, order right away. And then we will send it to you because I don’t, because even though our postal service is back up and running, they didn’t really solve the reason why they went on strike.

No, they just kind of got forced back to work on a temporary contract and they’re planning to go back on strike soon. So stay tuned. Bye bye bye. And as with the paranormal activity in our house, we haven’t really noticed anything too strange. Yep.

No thumps, no bumps, no creeks other than when it’s a windy day outside.

We did find a dead mouse in our basement, but that’s not paranormal. No.

The mouse ghost, we don’t know where the ghost went.

Yeah, we don’t know what happened. Maybe it was that random thing that we heard running through our floor on the last episode.

Oh, maybe. Yeah. Running free from his body. But so far, no flashes of light.

We also want to announce we’ve got a Blue Sky account.

If you are part of the mass exodus from originally Twitter and now I guess people are leaving meta on droves around. Yeah, and Facebook. And Facebook. You can head over to our probably cursed Blue Sky account. It’s very much the same content you already know and love just on Blue Sky. Which for now, it’s a good social media platform.

I like it. It’s not algorithmed. It’s chronological, which I like because I kind of like to not see something from like four months ago and then want to comment on it and then feel like I don’t know if I should comment on something from four months ago.

I also don’t like when they give you the most popular stuff because a lot of the most popular stuff is annoying or annoying. Or controversial or enraging. I’d rather see the current stuff that is fed to me as it gets posted.

Even the trending stuff, that’s massively influenced by bots. The fun is on Blue Sky, we’re also on Tumblr, TikTok, or as long as TikTok will be running in North America. And if you are still holding out, hoping that Zuckerberg will change his life around, we still maintain our pages on Instagram and Facebook. That brings us to the end of our probably cursed museum segment.

We’ll now get on to the main topic. It’s the late 1500s in Germany. And for years, a beast from hell has been terrorizing the small town of Bedburg, which is west of Cologne. It attacks sheep, goats, and cattle. It slaughters men, women, and children. With violence so extreme, people avoid traveling to the area.

For fear of encountering the werewolf of Bedburg, aka Peter Stump. My source for today’s subject comes from a 16-page pamphlet, originally published in London in 1590. Titled, and it’s a long title.

It drew discourse, declaring the damnable life and death of one stubbed Peter, a most wicked sorcerer who in the likeness of a wolf committed many murders, continuing this devilish practice 25 years, killing and devouring men, women, and children.

That sounds like a title for somebody’s dissertation for university. Just saying.

Very wordy. Yeah, it’s very wordy. Back then, you weren’t charged per word when you got things printed so people just went wild. Yeah. And, well, this was originally translated from a German print, of which no copies of that have survived. So maybe it was more concise in its original German.

You don’t know how German works.

I do not. So according to the pamphlet, besides the testimony of the townsfolk, most of what I’m about to relate comes from the testimony of the wolf man himself, Peter Stump. And Sheryl, can you guess what advanced interrogation techniques they were using in the 1580s to get confessions?

Pulling teeth. Yep. Quartering with horses. You’re on the right track. Okay. Drowning in water.

Essentially torture. Yes. Yeah. That was all they had. Yeah. And it worked every time.

Yes, of course it did.

But they only had to put him on the rack, that torture device where they tie your hands and feet to big rollers and stretch you out. It’s awful. And so awful, he didn’t wait to get stretched out before he confessed his entire life story.

I can just imagine that they like clicked it twice. And he’s like, I’ll give up. I’m telling you what’s happening. He’s like, we haven’t even made it all the way tight yet. I’m very susceptible to pain.

So, from his own description here, Peter was evil from a young age. Poor Peter. At age 12, he was already practicing the dark arts. He was obsessed with magic, necromancy, sorcery, and wanted to make contact with any infernal spirits he could. Gosh, same. Typical teenage.

12 year olds. Or tweenage, shenanigans. And after some time, his dark activities were successful. And he gets the attention of the big guy from Down Under himself, the devil, who comes to meet Peter. Now, everybody’s heard of the old cliche of making a deal with the devil.

You know, they want riches, power, status, base human pleasures. But Peter’s stump had something very specific in mind. Peter had a darkness in him. A darkness he wanted to unleash without ever having to fear being caught. He requested the ability to act out his dark desires in the form of a beast to prevent anyone from ever suspecting it was being perpetrated by a person. And the devil approved of this request and gave Peter a special garment that would allow him to transform into a wolf whenever he put it on. And he would transform back as soon as he removed it. Sheryl, can you guess what sort of garment the devil gives you to turn into a werewolf and back?

I mean, it’s just going to be a wolf hat. That would be cool.

Maybe a little obvious in case it falls out of your bag.

Okay, okay. If you if you don’t want obvious, pair socks. Ooh, wolf socks. Yeah, wolf socks.

So you’re close in terms of it being an undergarment. It was a girdle. Oh, nice. The most evil of all garments, I assume.

I mean, that way no one can see it ever.

That’s true. And yeah, I think it would be like a hat or necklace or something. Nope, just a girdle. It seems a little bit cumbersome to slip on and off. Yeah. I think like a magic ring. It worked for Bilbo. I still think a wolf hat. Yeah, wolf hat. Wolf hat. So anyway, Peter loves this girdle.

It’s easy to carry, easy to conceal, and he can use it at a moment’s notice. And true to the devil’s word, it indeed transforms into a werewolf when he puts it on. And his wolf form is huge, strong and mighty, with eyes that sparkle in the night like fire and a large mouthful of sharp teeth. It makes him incredibly fast, and he can run incredibly long distances. And best of all, as soon as he takes it off, he’s back to being regular old Peter.

Why would he ever take it off, though?

Um, you know, I think he just wanted also to be a person. Oh, OK. I think he just wanted to murder without being caught. OK. So this is like how Superman wanted to save people’s lives, but he wanted to make sure nobody could recognize him when he took off his glasses. Right. OK. And it didn’t take him long to begin using the devil’s girdle. If anyone displeased him, he would wait until they’d go for a walk outside the city alone, where he would slip on his diabolical girdle and savagely attack them, tearing out their throats and ripping their limbs apart. You could do that without being a wolf.

It’s true. No, you can’t, because you wanted to make sure if anyone like saw, they only saw like a wolf. A wolf. And you can’t put out an APB on a wolf. I guess you can these days.

I was going to say, you cut back then too.

And he would get so drunk on his own bloodlust, he would roam the fields day and night, attacking anyone he came across, even the livestock, murdering sheep and cattle and eating them raw. So he went for the full life or full wolf experience.

I mean, if you can digest that, why not?

And I also found in the pamphlet, they made heavy emphasis on the fact that he would kill cattle and sheep. Like it was repeated many times throughout the pamphlet, to the point where it would seem to be almost as bad as him murdering people.

I mean, it is people’s livelihood when you’re killing the cattle and the sheep. So I can see why some people would feel that way.

It’s just sort of funny how they saw people back then. And just like he planned, no one suspected these attacks were the cause of anything other than a particularly nasty wolf.

No one suspected Peter as he would walk about town cheerfully greeting the friends and family members of those he had slain. So I think that’s the part where he wanted to be like the human. Like lording over his evil, evil crimes. So over time, Peter’s violent escapades escalate. If he happened upon a group of women in the fields, he would turn into the wolf and charge into the group, grabbing one while the others ran off. Now the pamphlet said right before brutally murdering women, he would ravish them, which I think is an old timey term for sex crime.

So this is mostly a story of a man who wanted to get his rocks off and have no one know.

Pretty much. Yeah, okay. Getting his rocks off and also murdering. Either way, after killing them, he would track down the other girls and take them out one by one. Sort of like in a horror movie. Sometimes he would play games with his prey. If he saw a group of people he knew, he would hide in the forest calling out one of their names. So he’d be like, sure, that person thinking it was a prank and would try and go find them in the woods would go out, find them and get messily devoured by Peter.

Well, that was their first mistake because every time I’ve heard someone say my name and I’m somewhere where I don’t think I should be hearing my name. I don’t go check it out. Just keep walking. Just keep walking. Avoid that if at all possible and run as far away as possible.

And when victim number one didn’t come back, victim number two would go out looking for them and repeat and repeat until he had murdered the entire group. Wow. And he was even getting more bolder, more depraved in his violent wolf form. One day he tricked his son into going on a walk in the woods with him. During that walk, he made an excuse to go off and answer the call of nature, only to return as the wolf and devour his own boy.

I like how he had to trick his son into going to a walk in the woods. It sounds like nowadays you’ve got to trick your kids into doing something in nature. Yeah. The kid was like, you know what, I just want to sit at home and watch paint dry. And the dad’s like nonsense. We need to go for a walk in the woods.

Stretch your legs. Yeah. You’re letting your brain rot reading these pamphlets. That’s right. He devoured his own son, specifically his son’s brains, which the pamphlet says he found to be, I quote, a dainty delicious meal.

You see, just because of the time period when this happened and like, nobody seems to have done anything to try and confirm these things. I wonder if it’s like the Monty Python thing where like, they’re like, she turned me into a noot and everyone looks at him and he’s like, well, I got, I got better. Like his son just walking around town and he’s like, oh yeah, yeah, my dad ate my brains, but it’s OK. I got I grew new ones. Yeah.

He said he’s out there at the travel and it’s like, and then he ate my brain.

Yeah. It’s just I think these would be things that you could check and maybe see if they actually happened. But.

A confession is good enough evidence. That’s right. Back in these times. So Peter Stump’s wolfish rampage went on for years. People eventually stopped walking the fields alone unarmed. Those that went out would witness the countryside littered with the mangled remains of people in cattle. If anyone went missing, the immediate assumption was that they were killed by the wolf. And there are many attempts to track down and kill the wolf.

Heavily armed hunting parties with hunting dogs and mastiffs would venture out daily. But Stump and his wolf form was always too cunning, too quick. But persistence paid off.

And one day the hunting parties got lucky and they were closing in on the wolf. Peter, seeing no way to outrun his pursuers, throws off the girdle and tries to casually walk back to the city as a person.

But what if somebody else picks up that girdle?

Oh, we’ll get to.

Oh, OK. What happens with the girdle? Excellent. Also, how do you casually throw a girdle? I don’t my brain might be not remembering what a girdle is, but I’m pretty sure it tightens around your waist. So how do you get out of that super fast and throw it away? I’m not sure.

OK. Maybe it’s a special magic girdle. Yeah. Or the devil improved on the girdle’s design. Oh, yeah. All he was all he was making for people.

I mean, it wasn’t trying to make him look skinny. So maybe that’s why it’s easy to get off.

Just shimmies off like a big loose shirt. Yeah, I got it. I got it now. So he casts off the girdle, trying to walk home, act in casual whistling. But this time one of the watch one of the hunters was watching. And though his first thought was that it was the devil trying to assume the shape of a man, but he recognized Peter and he gathered the hunting party together and they all surrounded Peter and escorted him home just to make sure it was really him.

And once satisfied, it was the real Peter stump. They took him to the local magistrate who ordered him to be put to the rack. Fearing torture, Peter confessed to everything, his dabbling with black magic, his deal with the devil and the girdle. The magistrates found him guilty and they sent him to have his body laid on a wheel and his flesh pulled off with red hot burning pincers. Afterwards, his legs, his limbs were to be broken with axes and his head cut off. And finally, his remains burned to ashes. I didn’t really believe in rehabilitation back then.

Yeah, they kind of were like, well, his girdle is gone, but that still doesn’t make him not a murderer.

His wife and daughter were also found guilty as accomplices. Though there’s not much detail other than they decided his wife was a gossip and a she devil who was too attractive. And they were both sentenced to be burned to ashes as well. Although I don’t think they got the extreme punishment that Peter Stump’s body got.

No, how dare she have been too attractive? That is that is just the lowest of low.

Yep. I think the pamphlet described her as more comely than even the fairest women in the town. So I had to look up those terms, make sure that’s what they meant back then. Yeah, just too hot. Wow. Too hot to be a good person.

I know some people like that. Yeah, it tracks.

Yeah. And the magistrates did try to send out parties to find the devil’s girdle in the area where Peter was captured, but it was gone. They assumed the devil reclaimed it once Peter had been captured.

Instead of being like, you know what, that girl probably never existed.

It’s probably some lady who put it on, turned into a wolf and then started running around. Yeah. Trying to figure out how to change back. Yeah. And that’s the story of the werewolf of Bedburg, Peter Stump.

I’m surprised it took like, I don’t know how big this town was, but you made it sound like there are all dead bodies everywhere. How is there still people left in the town? I’m not sure. Okay.

So these sort of pamphlets were religious propaganda at the time. Okay. So they might have amped up the details to make it a better selling pamphlet. They were also throwing in like parts there, like Peter Stump was accused of incest and that he had impregnated his own daughter and had a child. But it didn’t make any sense in the context of the pamphlet because like, that was thought of as a crime back then. And they would have found that out before. Yeah.

They would have gone through all the rest of this rigmarole song and dance with the werewolf, huh?

That would have been enough to put him in jail already.

Yeah. It just means he pissed off someone at church. Let’s be honest. Yeah.

If you look up the Wikipedia page, that is one of the leading theories is that he was just some guy who pissed off the wrong people in the church. And they decided that he was a werewolf.

He’s going down. And this was right around the height of the witch trials going on in Europe at the time, which I also looked that up and around 40,000 people were accused and killed as witches. Geez.

How is Europe still standing?

Yeah, you’d think like, like back to your question, like how is anyone this town still alive? Like how is anyone in Europe left?

Yeah. Like after all the witch trials and burnings and murder and how do we continue as a group?

Yep. How do we even learn to trust each other again? Yeah.

I mean, let’s be honest. Most people don’t trust each other right now.

That’s true. That is my story for the cursometer. We’ll get the results from the cursometer now. Please stand by. And the cursometer says probably cursed. Yeah.

Even if Peter’s story was exaggerated, what happened to him was terrible. Yeah. Like I don’t, I don’t think he actually did anything wrong. He just just got tortured to the point of confessing.

That’s true. And that is definitely not good. Because it could have just been an actual wolf killing people of which and we might do it for like future episodes. There are like notorious wolves that just seem to kill exclusively people and it just got attributed to this one guy. Yeah.

That’s a word of warning for all of you. Wolves don’t typically eat people. We, Chris and I live in a country where there are a lot of wolves still. We keep shipping our wolves down to the States. So for them to be wanting to eat people because you’re feeding the wildlife, stop feeding the wildlife.

Stop feeding the wildlife. Yes. I don’t know. It was Germany, so maybe they smelled like German bratwurst.

You never know. We were trying to tame a whole bunch of random things back then to keep it as pets. But then it was just one guy who was like, you know what, if I feed this wolf enough, yeah, gonna be my best friend.

All right. He did raise it and then it was getting violent and they’re like, you better get rid of that dog.

And he’s like, okay. Yeah. Set it loose in the woods. And then it doesn’t know how to hunt for itself. So it just comes back and starts attacking people. Well, that was a good story, Chris. I loved the story. I wish we had more random pamphlets from the 1500s. We could.

I bet there are more. Yeah. I bet there is a ton.

Yeah. Just to see if we can find some more.

Like, you know, when you go traveling to like a mountain town and your hotel has that rack of like little pamphlets describing the area. I bet they had that back then, but it was all just about local horrors.

It’s probably just sitting in front of like City Hall. Yeah. Just grab one up and be like, oh, look.

Probably a church too. Yeah. Well, that is it for today’s probably cursed episode. We will be back again on the 1st of March with our next episode, which will be presented by Sheryl. Until then, stay spooky. If you want to take a look at the artifact from today, you can go to probablycursed.etzee .com.

If you have any episodes suggestions for us, you can send us an email at probablycursedpodcastatgmail.com.

And like I said before, we are on most of the social medias, so find us on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Tumblr, Blue Sky. You can also check out our website at probablycursed.net and all that should be linked on there as well. And thanks for listening and talk to you guys next month. Bye.