Loreplay

Hey hey, lore-loving weirdos — before Salem, before witch trials became a cultural shorthand for mass hysteria, Europe spent roughly two hundred years putting people on trial for turning into wolves. And executing them. Tens of thousands of them.
In this episode of Loreplay, host Dayna Pereira dives into the real, documented, court-certified history of the European werewolf trials — the paranoia, the pamphlets, the torture, the confessions, and the people ground up inside the machinery. We're talking official government decrees authorizing citizens to hunt werewolves (yes, that was a real legal document), the most sensationalized and brutal execution of the sixteenth century, and — the story Dayna cannot stop thinking about — the eighty-year-old man who showed up to his own werewolf trial, admitted everything cheerfully, and walked away with twenty lashes because he was simply too chaotic for the court to deal with.



From Lizzie Borden to Elizabeth Báthory, the infamous Blood Countess, Loreplay explores true crime, haunted history, paranormal mysteries, and the people behind the legends. Join host Dayna Pereira for ghost stories, witch trials, urban legends, cryptids, and dark history told with researched storytelling, sharp sarcasm, and absolutely no patience for historical bullshit.
Follow Loreplay wherever you listen to podcasts and find us on Instagram at @loreplaypod.
Come play.


Primary Sources:
  • Anonymous. A True Discourse Declaring the Damnable Life and Death of One Stubbe Peeter. London, 1590. [The only surviving record of the Peter Stumpp case — two copies exist, held at the British Museum and Lambeth Library]
  • Trial transcript of Thiess of Kaltenbrun, Provincial Court of Venden, April 28, 1691. Hofger-Archiv Kriminalakte n. 30 v. J. 1692. First published by Hermann von Bruiningk in Mitteilungen aus der livländischen Geschichte 22 (1924–28): 203–20. English translation by Bruce Lincoln available via University of Chicago Press: press.uchicago.edu
  • Boguet, Henri. Discours des sorciers. Lyon, 1602. [Legal treatise by the Grand Judge who presided over the Gandillon case]
  • Fründ, Johannes. Chronicle of the Valais witch trials, c. 1428–1430. [Earliest documented lycanthropy accusations]
Modern Scholarly Works:
  • de Blécourt, Willem, ed. Werewolf Histories. Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. — The definitive modern academic collection on European werewolf trials
  • Ginzburg, Carlo and Bruce Lincoln. Old Thiess, a Livonian Werewolf: A Classic Case in Comparative Perspective. University of Chicago Press, 2020. — Includes first full English translation of the Thiess trial transcript: press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/O/bo46813477.html
  • Ginzburg, Carlo. The Night Battles: Witchcraft and Agrarian Cults in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983
  • Scot, Reginald. The Discoverie of Witchcraft. 1584
Accessible Articles & Further Reading:
  • "Before America Had Witch Trials, Europe Had Werewolf Trials" — History.com: history.com/articles/werewolf-trials-europe-witches
  • "Werewolf Witch Trials" — Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Werewolf_witch_trials
  • "Gilles Garnier" — Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilles_Garnier
  • "Peter Stumpp" — Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Stumpp
  • "Thiess of Kaltenbrun" — Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiess_of_Kaltenbrun
  • "Beasts and Believers: A History of Werewolf Trials in Early Modern Europe" — DIG History Podcast, October 2025: digpodcast.org/2025/10/26/werewolves/
  • "Gandillon Family" — Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology via Encyclopedia.com
  • "Jacques Roulet" — Monstrous.com: monstrous.com/jacques-roulet/
🎙️ ABOUT LOREPLAY Loreplay is the comedy-paranormal podcast where haunted history meets hot takes. Host Dayna Pereira is equal parts storyteller and skeptic — blending dark humor, spooky vibes, and genuine historical research into binge-worthy deep dives on ghost stories, folklore, paranormal history, and the weird, dark corners of the past.
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Creators and Guests

Host
Dayna Pereira
Show Host of Multiple Chart Hitting Podcasts. French Fry and Wine Enthusiast

What is Loreplay?

Hey there, My Fellow Lore Lovers. Welcome to Loreplay. The show where we dig up haunted history, creepy folklore, and paranormal weirdness and poke it with a stick. I tell you the legend, then I tell you what the actual sources say.. and then we sit together in the gap between the two, because that’s where the good stuff lives. Loreplay is skeptic-meets-believer. I love a ghost story as much as anyone, but I love digging into if we were fed some bullshit, or if the sources check out more. If a “fact” has been passed around for 150 years without a single receipt, we’re going to talk about it. We also don’t pretend history was some charming olde timey costume party. A lot of what gets packaged as spooky folklore was really people in power hurting people with none... women burned as witches, the poor locked away, the “different” made into monsters. Loreplay calls that out. Loudly. With jokes. So, to be clear about where this show stands: we’re pro human rights, pro truth, and deeply anti historical bullshit. If that bothers you, the door’s right there. Bye Girl.. If you love learning about all the fucked up ways history has historied, and you're ready to use that knowledge as your feral superpower, then welcome! We ride at dawn.