The Real History of Werewolf Attacks

The primary resource for this story is John Kachuba’s excellent Shapeshifters: A History. Purchase using the link below to help support our site (you pay the same price, but we receive a small payment).

On September 1st, 1996, the New York Times published an article with the headline, “In India, Attacks by Wolves Spark Old Fears and Hatreds.” The author describes a grizzly series of wolf attacks, which led to the death of 33 children in the state of Uttar Pradesh.

Villagers in the rural and largely impoverished region were overwhelmed with hysteria, and rightfully so. Wolf attacks are rare these days- as the natural instincts of the fearsome canines have evolved to avoid human contact. Yet search parties had no doubt about the perpetrators of these grizzly murders. Distinctive tooth and claw marks confirmed the presence of wolves. In many cases, the bodies were almost completely eaten, leaving behind only some bones for identification.

The 10 year old sister of one of the victims was eyewitness to an attack: “It came across the grass on all four paws, like this. As it grabbed (him), it rose onto two legs until it was tall as a man. Then it threw him over its shoulder. It was wearing a black coat, and a helmet and goggles.” The young girl’s grandfather added, “As long as officials pressure us to say it was a wolf, we’ll say it was a wolf. But we have seen this thing with our own eyes. It is not a wolf; it is a human being.”

Some locals put the blame on terrorist infiltrators from Pakistan, cleverly disguised as wolves. But most of the villagers believed a more ancient and more terrifying enemy was responsible for the horrific attacks: the legendary shapeshifting werewolf.

For centuries, stories of men shapeshifting into wolves have terrified people all around the world. In our modern times, few believe in the ability of a human to transform in such a fantastical way. And yet, in these superstitious Indian villages, childhood fairy tales of shapeshifting wolves combined with the very real attacks on their children led to a literal witch hunt- resulting in the lynching of over 20 suspects by the villagers.

As horrifying as these attacks were, they were nothing compared to a similar spree of 1878 in the same region. According to British officials, 624 humans were killed by wolves in Uttar Pradesh that year. A bounty was placed on wolves by the British government, and over 2,600 were hunted and killed over the coarse of 9 months, bringing an end to the wolf attacks. In the 1996 incident, officials employed the same tactic, attaching a heavy reward to anyone who brought in the dead body of a wolf, despite their status as an endangered species at that time.

The attacks eventually stopped- animal conservationists credited the atypical behavior of the wolves to extreme hunger. Much of their natural habitat has been encroached upon, making them more desperate for food. Desperate enough to snatch small children from their beds.

Wolf attacks are extraordinarily rare these days. Only a handful of fatal wolf attacks have been documented outside this region of India over the last century. In fact, only two have been recorded in all of North America, which boasts a wolf population of over 75,000. The Indian fatalities both in 1878 and 1996 are extreme outliers to say the least.

One comparable large scale wolf massacre occurred in France in the middle of the 18th century- and perhaps unsurprisingly, this too was accompanied by mass-hysteria regarding werewolves. In the 1760s, the remote region of Gévaudan, deep in the mountains of southern France, was terrorized by a massive wolf-like creature, who came to be known as “The Beast of Gévaudan.” Similar to the attacks in Uttar Pradesh, eyewitnesses reported seeing the beast run off on two feet and other human-like behaviors.

The beast moved from village to village, savagely murdering over 100 women and children with an unfathomable ferocity. Wolf attacks were much more common in the 18th century, but the Beast had a distinctly different taste for victims. In 2002, a group of European researchers published a comprehensive record of documented wolf attacks, including those of the Beast of Gévaudan. The statistics clearly show that the beast preferred larger victims- the beast was 6 times more likely to attack an adult, and the average age of the victims was significantly older.

This hard data shows that the residents of Gévaudan were not exaggerating the size and ferocity of this creature. While few continue to believe the werewolf hypothesis, other theories have emerged including that it may have been a wolf-lion halfbreed, or even a surviving member of a prehistoric larger species.

An even more bizarre rash of attacks takes us back 200 years prior to the 16th century, once again in France. But this time, no wolves were blamed for the murders- instead it was men who confessed they were werewolves. In 1521, two men were on trial for a series of homicides, including several in which they ate their victims. Pierre Burgot and Michel Verdun admitted to the gruesome crimes, explaining how they had used a magic salve to transform into werewolves.

Over the next few decades, many similar cases were tried in France and Germany. In a few instances there were eyewitness reports of the men transforming, such as in the case of Peter Stumpp from Bedburg, Germany. Stumpp was pursued, in wolf form, by a gang of dogs and men after committing numerous brutal acts of murder, rape, and cannibalism. When the wolf was eventually taken down by the gang, they were shocked to see a naked man sitting before them. This case was an exception however, with most of the 16th century werewolves freely admitting their beastly nature, even when there were no witnesses. In several cases, reference to a magical salve or ointment was made.

Of course, in 16th century Europe claims of the supernatural were fairly common: witch hunts were in full effect across the continent, and belief in magic was at an all time high. This painting from that era by Francisco Goya shows witches also using some sort of ointment to facilitate a shapeshifting transformation.

But why would these murderous men confess to being werewolves, especially when there was no judicial motivation to do so? Digging back a few hundred years more may provide another clue. The berserkers were a specialized group of Norse warriors, known to be in operation as early as the 9th century. Their brutality in battle was unrivaled– often described as entering a sort of hysterical trance, the fearless, savage beasts would cut through anything that stood in their way, including their own soldiers.

The berserkers would wear animal skins, most often those of bears and wolves, in an effort to literally become the fierce predators embodied by those skins. Many historians believe their trance-like frenzy was inspired by the ingestion of a psychedelic substance- one popular theory cites the amanita muscaria mushroom.

Could the “magical salve” present in many of the French werewolf cases perform a similar role to the amanita muscaria mushroom in the transformation of the berserkers?

In the end, the thought of men physically transforming into wolves seems highly unlikely. But with centuries of werewolf reports to contend with, might there be some grain of actual strangeness that ties these stories together? Could the brutal child murders of Uttar Pradesh have been perpetrated by common men? Perhaps under the influence of a psychedelic drug or “magical salve”? Or maybe a giant, savage beast of extraordinary size, like the The Beast of Gevadaun was to blame?

Despite the extreme rarity of fatal wolf attacks, the official explanation for the 33 young lives lost remains the hungry wolves hypothesis. And yet, eyewitnesses swear that they saw something more than a wolf, yet not quite a man.