Peter Stubb, Werewolf of Bedburg

In 1589, Peter Stubb (a.k.a. Peter Stube, Peeter Stubbe, or Peter Stumpf) had one of the most lurid and famous werewolf trials in history. After being stretched on the rack, a close to 40-year-old Stubb confessed to having practiced black magic since he was twelve years old. He claimed the devil had given him a magical belt which enabled him to metamorphose into "the likenes of a greedy deuouring Woolf, strong and mighty, with eyes great and large, which in the night sparkeled like vnto brandes of fire, a mouth great and wide, with most sharpe and cruell teeth, A huge body, and mightye pawes." To turn back into his human form, all Stubb had to do was remove the belt.

For twenty-five years, Stubb had been a self-described "insatiable bloodsucker" who gorged on the flesh of goats, lambs, sheep, men, women,
and children. He confessed to killing and eating fourteen children, two pregnant women, and the pregnant women's foetuses. One of the fourteen children was his own son, whose brains he devoured.

Not only was Stubb a mass-murderer and cannibal, but he was also a fornicator. He had an incestuous relationship with his daughter, and he coupled with an assortment of mistresses and one succubus sent to him by the devil.

Stubb was finally caught when hunters ran him down in his wolf form. He foolishly took off his belt and was recognized (Guiley 154).

"Peter Stubb was sentenced to having his skin torn off by red-hot pincers before being beheaded" (Farrington 65).

See also The Damnable Life and Death of Stubbe Peeter from the 1590 London Chapbook of George Bores.

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Peter Stubb, Werewolf of Bedburg copyrighted 1996-1998 to Shantell Powell.