Stump
Stüpp is the name for a werewolf in the western Rhineland . Apparently, this regional variant of the shapeshifter known throughout Europe is the only one with its own name. The Stüpp is represented in numerous folk traditions in the area between the Rhine and Eifel or Selfkant and has its closest relatives in Westphalia , where a similar monster under the name Klüngelpelz or Böxenwolf was feared, as well as in the provinces of Belgium and the Netherlands bordering Germany .
The Stüpp - a variant of the werewolf
The Stüpp differs from the werewolf, as it occurs in most Western European folk traditions, in that it usually did not maul its victims, but ambushed them (mostly at a crossroads, the cemetery wall or a stream or river), jumping at them from behind and let them carry you (in rhein dialect: “pözen” or “hackeln”). This connects him with another figure from popular belief, the Aufhocker , who is also frequently represented in Rhenish legends. He often accompanied his victims in the form of a seemingly playful puppy, but grew bigger and bigger and then jumped on their backs and could not be shaken off. Most of the time it got heavier from step to step, while the person carrying it was tormented with agony and finally collapsed completely exhausted and was marked for the rest of his life by the experience, lost his mind or died soon afterwards.
The Hackestüpp in Düren , whose name also includes the verb "hackeln" (to carry on your back), was particularly notorious . There are also sagas in which the Stüpp behaves like the werewolf in other parts of Germany or Europe, i.e. that is, he tears his victim apart, which does not become a werewolf itself afterwards. The werewolf transformation of a person who has been attacked by the werewolf belongs to the realm of modern trivial myths and goes back to Curt Siodmak , the screenwriter of the classic horror film The Wolf Man (1942), but cannot be proven in the traditional folk lore of Europe.
Relationships with the figure of the undead revenant
According to popular tradition, the Stüpp preferred typical places where revenants and living corpses also appeared, e.g. B. Crossroads, cemeteries or places where murderous acts had occurred or people had committed suicide. Either he ambushed his victims there or let them drag him to such a place. This leads to the conclusion that at least the Rhenish variant of the werewolf was originally intended as a returning dead person or as a carrier of dead souls and not primarily as a person who could transform himself into a wolf thanks to magical abilities.
Zenker wrote down a legend in the Eifel that reports that a suicide appears to people as a huge wolf shortly after his death. The possible connection between the revenant and the werewolf, if it actually existed, has faded in the last few centuries, possibly under the influence of the belief in witches, since the werewolf has partly become the male counterpart of the witch. In recent versions of the saga of the Stüpp there is always talk of a belt made of wolf skin, which the magically inclined person wrapped or buckled around his waist when he wanted to assume the shape of a predator.
Traditional measures against the stubble
If a person was attacked from the rock, he could only defend himself to a limited extent. Similar to the ghostly figure known as a stool, the victim suffered from severe anxiety and panic attacks , which often robbed him of his senses. In some legends, however, it is said that a man stabbed the crouching werewolf with a knife in the paw or at the place where the werewolf belt was, and thus put an end to the ghost. If he had a concrete suspicion about the monster that attacked him, all he had to do was call out its name.
The Düren Hackestüpp was unmasked because a farmer did not let himself be pressed to the ground, but dragged the monster into his house and the farmer's wife put a silver crucifix on the werewolf's forehead, "where the baptismal water once flowed" (H. Hoffmann), hit. As against any other variety of the werewolf, one could defend oneself against the stub if one threw him a cloth - often an apron - which the monster then bit into. Later, the transformed werewolf could easily be exposed because the threads of the torn clothing were still hanging between his teeth. Since the near victim of such an attack is often the daughter of the werewolf, folklorists trained in psychoanalysis believe they can read a symbolic treatment of the incest problem from this, similar to the fairy tale of Little Red Riding Hood (see Blécourt).
The Stüpp in the context of the Rhenish ghost figures
The figure of the werewolf has mixed with other crouching ghost figures, above all with the bahkauv (brook calf), a demonic creature who ambushed people at watercourses and let them carry them to the other side of the brook or river. In Aachen and Düren, the Bachstüpp and the brook calf were even ascribed therapeutic abilities, because they healed anyone who had been ridden by them from alcoholism. In the figure of the crouching animal, traces of an ancient belief in the dead still shimmer through, because the eerie beings were actually revenants who had assumed animal form and crouched on the living - a symbolic act aimed at depriving them of vitality. Like all demonic creatures, they shied away from contact with flowing water, the symbol of purity which, as impure beings, must be repugnant to them.
Other crouching monsters in the Rhineland legends were large dogs with huge, glowing eyes, which were known as Zubbelsdeer ("shaggy animal") and were probably the decline of an original werewolf. This variant probably emerged only in the last two centuries after the wolves had completely disappeared or exterminated as a threat to the rural existence in the Rhineland. To the same extent that the werewolf was replaced by the demonic dog, so too did belief in a human being who had turned into the threatening animal. Many of the people who were interviewed by folklorists between 1900 and 1925 only knew the Stüpp as a ghostly creature. In various legends recorded around 1900, the Stüpp has turned into a harmless, if annoying, tormentor.
Possible historical background of the legendary figure
The Stüpp owes its name to the farmer Peter Stump , who went down in criminal history as the werewolf of Bedburg . The man was executed along with his daughter and lover on October 31, 1589 for allegedly making a pact with the devil and turning himself into a wolf. In this guise, he allegedly cruelly killed at least thirteen people. The case was described in detail in leaflets and pamphlets. An extensive pamphlet printed in London in 1590 is the only real source, but the descriptions must be filled with all kinds of question marks, and it cannot be ruled out that Peter Stump was a victim of the Counter-Reformation . There is some evidence that he was executed in a particularly cruel manner (including tearing out meat with glowing tongs and wheels while the body was alive) to deter the population of Bedburg, who had converted to Protestantism , and that the accusation of werewolfism was only a pretext that the People easily saw through and understood as a massive warning from the authorities (e.g. the Elector and Archbishop of Cologne ).
The werewolf belief in the area west of Cologne seems to go back a long way in the past, as the numerous local legends show. In this respect, it is not surprising that the first important werewolf trial on German soil took place here, regardless of whether the trial was really about supposed sorcery or whether it was a politically motivated show trial. The fact that the authorities accused the farmer Stump of shapeshifting leads to the conclusion that this was an offense that was widely known and feared. The process has left its mark on popular belief. Hardly any other area in Europe can boast as many werewolf legends as this part of the Rhineland, and the figure of the werewolf has become so overpowering in popular belief that it has ousted other ghost figures or mixed with them, for example with the stool. Only with the extinction of wolves after the beginning of Prussian rule in the Rhineland (1815) did the figure of the werewolf also fade.
Individual legends, such as that of Düren Hackestüpp, allow the conclusion that in earlier times muggers took advantage of the rural population's fear of the crouching werewolf and lay in wait for their victims at night while wearing fur. Something similar is reported in a vague manner about the Aachen brook calf, which for years jumped at and robbed drunk people until a strong blacksmith overcame the monster and found a city guard in the hide.
literature
- Willem de Blécourt, I Would Have Eaten You Too: Werewolf Legends in the Flemish, Dutch and German Area , Folklore 118 (2007), 23-43.
- Wilhelm Bodens, Der Werwolf , Das Rurland 3 (1935), 1-6.
- Heinrich Hoffmann, Folklore of the Jülich Land . Eschweiler 1911 a. 1914, 2 vol.
- Gerda Grober-Glück, Aufhocker and Aufhocken according to the collections of the Atlas of German Folklore , Rheinisches Jahrbuch für Volkskunde 15-16 (1965), pp. 117-143.
- Peter Kremer, Where horror lurks. Bloodsuckers and headless horsemen, werewolves and revenants on Inde, Erft and Rur . Düren 2003. ISBN 3-929928-01-9
- Friedrich Wilhelm Noll, local history of the Bergheim district . Bergheim 1912.
- Heinz Rölleke (ed.), Westphalian legends . Düsseldorf 1981.
- Dries Vanysacker, Werewolf Trials in the Southern and Northern Netherlands in the 16th and 17th Centuries
- Dennis Vlaminck, Late Plea for a Werewolf , Kölnische Rundschau (Erftkreis edition), No. 108 v. May 10, 2003.
- Adam Wrede, Eifel Folklore . Bonn 1960.
- Adolf Wuttke, The German People's Superstition of the Present . Leipzig 1925.
- Paul Zaunert (ed.), Westphalian legends . Düsseldorf 1967 (2nd edition).
- Matthias Zender (ed.), Legends and Stories from the West Eifel . Bonn 1980 (first 1934).