The answer to last week’s challenge question that asked: Most Christian churches are equipped with what to stop the development of werewolves?
No one knew, must have been too challenging. The answer: Stain glass windows!
What?
Yep, stain glass windows were first used in churches to prevent the development of werewolves. How, one might ask?
Back in the Middle and Dark Ages when the Catholic Church was asserting its power, everyone, absolutely everyone, had to attend a service at least once per day. In those days, a service was held every few hours. This schedule was known as the Book of Hours. The first service Prime (or Matins) was held at the start of the day. Terce, Sext, None, Vespers, and Compline followed. Compline was usually the last service open to the public, monks sometimes held services at midnight amongst themselves.
It was required for all people to attend these services. The peasant, usually had to go to the last service, Compline. Most peasants had to work the farms for their lords or kings. They missed most of the services during the day the lords would generally attend those to both get it over with and to not be with the “commoner.”
What does this have to do with werewolves?
Since most of the peasants could not attend during the day, often certain rituals were put off until the evening. These rituals included such things as burials, weddings, and even baptisms.
In that the infant mortality rate was extremely high amongst peasants, baptisms were help when the child was very young, hours or days from being born.
Rarely, one of these baptisms fell on a full moon.
The old Dark or Middle Age church generally had a sound structure. Oft times, however, they could not afford things like windows or heating. In order to have some lighting, high “holes” were built, giving the church light and ventilation.
On full moon nights the church would be illuminated by the moon and, of course, the general candles. Should an infant be baptized while in the light of a full moon, he or she would become a werewolf.
Realizing this, most peasants did not want their son or daughter baptized during a full moon. A compromise needed to be reached. Somewhere lost in the annuals of time someone came up with the idea of using lightly colored glass as a shield to protect the infant from the moon’s harmful rays. This shield of course would have to be blessed to work effectively.
Apparently, the stain glass worked and most of the problem was resolved.
Werewolves, like vampires, are solitary creatures. They do not travel in packs like some later movies portray.
When a person has transformed or morphed into a werewolf, they have no concept of what happens. When the magic of the full moon dissipates, they have no idea where they are and how they got there. Some werewolves have no idea that they are actually a werewolf.
Should a person be bitten by a werewolf and not die, they will not become a werewolf as some legends seem to posit. Most werewolfologists agree the full moon baptism is the only way. This makes werewolfism a wholly Christian malady.
Whether or not it is true that a werewolf lives until it is killed is unclear. It is best to assume if there is a werewolf in your neighborhood, you are more likely to die than him.
Killing a werewolf is quite hard and best left to professionals. It seems that werewolves cannot be killed unless a pure silver bullet (not sterling, but pure) is fired into its heart. We have heard that a pure silver arrows or crossbow bolts work also. It is best if the weapon is dipped in holy water and blessed beforehand.
Next Week: Zombies!
