Greed Kills

Today we’ll take a trip to the grassy woodlands of northern Hungary for a tale about a werewolf reported in 1881. This story starts out with a fiddler by the name of Kropan who made his living by playing his music at local inns. But the money he earned was barely enough to keep him and his wife alive and fed.

Then, one night he notices that his wife is no longer hungry. He suspects that she is having an affair with a man much wealthier than him and this man is keeping her well fed (among other things). Kropan then decides to spy on his wife, but when he comes home early one night what he finds instead is a giant wolf walking around his house. He searches and searches for his wife and is stricken with grief believing that the wolf has eaten her. With no where to go and nothing he can do he lies down in bed but doesn’t sleep.

The next day as the first rays of sunlight shine Kropan goes outside to see the wolf return carrying a lamb in its jaws. He watches as the wolf drops the lamb, turns around in a circle, and instantly transforms into his wife. She calls out to him, saying that they now have enough food to eat and that she’ll go and make a roast.

From that time on she transforms into a wolf every night and goes hunting, returning with more meat they can eat. But soon she brings so much meat that Kropan is able to start an inn of his own. But eventually his wife starts to take too much meat from the neighboring villages, leaving them with few livestock left. Instead of be happy with all the meat she already has, her greed gets the best of her and she begins to hunt in her own village.

One night she kills the town priest’s beloved pet lamb, and when he visits her and her husband’s inn he recognizes the lamb’s carcass as his pet’s. The priest senses an evil presence inside the inn and so he casts holy water all over the place – on the inn, on Kropan and on Kropan’s wife. Once the holy water hits the wife she screams out in pain as if it was acid being thrown onto her. She ends up running as fast as she can from the inn.

The angry mob of villagers kill poor Kropan, but official justice puts two of the mob’s leaders in prison for six years for Kropan’s death. But the werewolf wife who was too greedy and too in love with the hunt escaped from the village and was never seen again.

– Moonlight

By moonlight

One of the writers for werewolves.com, as well as vampires.com.

2 comments

  1. Corruption, power and greed are issues that are usually portrayed with negative punishment. This also comes from the Middle Ages, where the priests and people was invented stories that could not have material greed.

    However, this is relatively recent, but it is curious how some habits do not change over the decades.

  2. My name is Morgan & I live in Nagykovacsi just outside Budapest.Please tel me where is the place where the lady transformed into a werewolf exactly?Also are there any more werewold stories about hungary? I am curious.I really enjoyed this one.

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