Free The Complete Idiot's Guide to Werewolves by Brown Robert Page A

is said and done, could be proven guilty of murder. She remains the only member of the family, which from that day came to be called the “Werewolves of St. Cloud,” known to have ever killed anyone. It would appear that Pierre Gandillon, his son, and his daughter were executed for nothing more than being related to Pernette.

The Trial of Theiss
    Of all the werewolf trials discussed in this chapter, this one is by far the most unique (not to mention creative). In 1692, in the village of Jurgenburg in Livonia, which is today a part of Russia, an 80-year-old man by the name of Theiss was put on trial as a werewolf. As seems to be the norm in these cases, Theiss did not try to deny that he was indeed a werewolf. However, he did offer to the presiding authorities what was then an unprecedented (and exceedingly brilliant) explanation for what he claimed werewolves truly were. His argument was so convincing, in fact, that he was temporarily set free and later avoided execution.
     
    He may have been old, but Theiss wasn’t at all feeble or weak. Under threat of torture, he refused to confess to having committed any crimes against human beings. However, he fully agreed with the accusation that he was a werewolf. This is where this particular story gets really interesting.
     
    Theiss explained that human beings did not understand the truth regarding the natural role of werewolves in the whole “good vs. evil” dynamic. Werewolves, Theiss explained to the court, were actually the servants of almighty God himself. Apparently, his story was so convincingly told that, when he was sent back to his cell, authorities did not immediately sentence him. In fact, some folklore accounts claim that his jailors (probably not wanting to risk the wrath of hell’s army) actually turned him loose. If this is true, Theiss did not appear to have stayed free. He was soon brought back to the court for further questioning.
     
    Theiss elaborated further that he was a member of a pack of holy werewolves called the Benandanti. Interestingly enough, during this same time period, a group of men in Italy also confessed to being the werewolf servants of God, members of the same Benandanti, and they also claimed that their role was to battle witches and demons. (They, however, did not manage to escape their execution.) You see, Theiss testified that ever since God had given Lucifer domain over the earth, the demonic legions of hell had been relatively free to cross over into the human world (though only on certain nights of the year), and werewolves were the only ones capable of guarding the gates. Both the witches of Earth and the demons of hell, he explained, were stealing grain from farms (which he offered as the cause of a recent famine) and bringing it into hell. If not for werewolves, he told the court, the armies of hell would soon starve out and then overrun the area and soon after all of humankind.
    Beastly Words
    History explains that the Benandanti were originally an ancient religious order of northern Italy, primarily responsible for performing rites that ensured agricultural fertility. This might explain why Theiss and the members of the Italian werewolf pack picked the name since they were claiming to protect farms from thefts by witches and demons.
    The old man explained that, many years ago, he’d become a part of this battle when a dark sorcerer named Skeistan (who was well known in the region, especially for being long dead ) had broken Theiss’s nose with a broom handle wrapped in hair from a horse’s tail. In a chance encounter, Theiss had stumbled upon their dark scheme. He was saved by werewolves, given an iron bar (the primary weapon against the forces of evil), and initiated by the Benandanti werewolves. Theiss told the court that the gates opened their widest on the three nights of the year that marked the changing of the seasons—the eves of Pentecost (winter to spring), St. Lucia (spring to summer), and St. John (summer to