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I’m writing this to let any witness know – I have not committed suicide, nor was I murdered. My coming death was also no freak accident or a force of nature. Though I’m sure it will all be passed down as a violent dog attack, the force which is currently on my trail is much more sinister. As many people studying folklore I may have shown signs of whimsy and childlike wonder at things others would consider nothing more than old wives tales. Yet I assure you, this isn’t a case of a man so immersed in fantasy, that he’d abandon reality for something more appealing, even if frightful. No. What I have witnessed in that small german village and has hunted me ever since, was definitely real.
Those days I have been a researcher of European folk tales and local beliefs. I have ventured into Irish forests, bringing offerings of beer and honey to the Fair Folk. Yet I received no boon nor curse. I conversed with old Polish Górals and hiked with them to the top of the Giewont. Yet I haven’t met the fabled Sleeping Knights. The kobolds of mines, the satyrs of Greece, the revenants of Parisian catacombs and all the vampires and ghosts of different countries have eluded me over my long years. Yet I’ve never given up hope of finding a beast which was real. What a fool I was! Now I know that I was like a soldier convincing himself of being immortal after narrowly avoiding but a few bullets. This foolish bravery built up a deadly overconfidence. Surely, all these phantoms of old are merely imaginary I thought to myself. If not, then at most they have died off or fallen into a deep slumber. But the horror I awakened in Schweinwald is as real as the ink staining these pages.
Back then, I was vacationing in the Franconian Jura, staying at a certain lodge house. I dare not write its name down, nor the name of its proprietor for the fear of reprisal. After all, it was him who told me of the local legend which led me to commit this grave sin. The middle aged widower running the lodge turned out to be a fellow folklorist, although his interests never ventured past the region of Bavaria, nor did they include an academic background. Still, he was a very passionate man with whom I shared many long talks of the region. One day, he shared with me a tale of a certain village, which he never managed to get to the truth of.
Schweinwald – a destitute village, focused mainly on pig and goat herding. Its inhabitants aren’t unfriendly to travelers and some families even offer lodgings free of charge… but their traditions quickly bewilder and scare many. This isolated hamlet has since time immemorial banned all cows and cow products including any and all imagery which could be interpreted to be bovine in appearance. It is such a strongly held taboo, that mentioning you stayed on a cattle farm or worked in an abattoir specializing in processing beef might get you chased away or at the very least angry looks and threat filled warnings. He’s been asking around the neighboring villages if they know something of this abnormal fear they hold. Yet every theory went in a different direction and had something which contradicted it.
He started by telling me the theories that held least evidence. The first one being that it was a reactionary tradition created to parody the Jewish and Muslim prohibition on pork. He quickly deduced it to be absolute nonsense, as at least two families in the village were Jewish and they seem to have lived there without any persecution. As for Muslims, the region wasn’t known for many encounters with them and the local populace seemed indifferent when asked about the Arabic faith.
Second theory was also religious in nature. It was rumored in some villages that the particular brand of Christianity practiced in Schweinwald was heretical in nature, likely started by the Cathars or some other sect. Indeed, the Cathars were famous for abstaining from meat and some could argue that changing the doctrine to only include some forms of flesh would make it more palatable. Yet there were no other Cathar-like beliefs held in that village. Alcohol was drank, obscene sexual jokes would be told on occasion and nobody seemed to perceive the human existence as some form of holy punishment which must be endured without enjoyment. Besides, there was a catholic monastery close by, which held mass for the villagers. It is unlikely someone could influence these villagers with heretical ideas when so close to the watchful monks who oft visited Schweinwald for trade and service.
Third theory had some merit, yet the lodge master debunked it through a short investigation. The saying goes that inhabitants of Schweinwald used to herd cattle, yet the changing climate forced them to adapt and switch to sturdier, more independent swine. Sure, he found evidence of some medieval cattle farming – records held by the monks in their archives denoted that the village was surrounded by pastures, not forests. Then, after a several year gap in records, the entire industry switched, with most pastures being abandoned and turning into overgrown, wild groves. But it had no mention of longer winters or other meteorological anomalies. Still, the savage wilderness now sprouting around its borders was a cornucopia filled to the brim with food despised by humans yet longed for by pigs. In recent years some of these forests had to be cleared and turned into proper pastures again, but in the times of lords and serfs it was customary to let pigs wander through the woods and forage on their own in the warm months of the year. Pigs back then were not that different from boars, though definitely weren’t the first choice for farmers.
Finally, he got to more plausible theories. Theory number four was about a plague. Specifically a plague that killed off bovines and made their meat toxic. Although it is unlikely for a peasant to eat the meat of a clearly sick cow, the evidence of a plague is clear. The gravestones next to the monastery are ancient, housing corpses of both lords, serfs and city folk. Monks even pointed my lodger to the spot under which they discovered a mass grave, hastily constructed and filled with contorted, ugly bodies which were still wearing their daily garments. They have decided not to report this to any archaeological societies, instead opting to erect a huge wooden crucifix and sanctify their resting place. Records of births and deaths found in their archive also confirmed that there was an extreme rise in mortalities around the same period when these graves would have been dug by their medieval brothers.
Fifth theory focused on information that required a deeper look into the archives. The lodger spent several months perusing various records and analyzing the data contained on yellowed-out pages. The monks were clearly meticulous about record-keeping and the precision as well as breadth of statistics they wrote down each year seemed to sometimes border on madness. Apparently, the local lord was known for his extreme greed and envy towards his neighbors, so the scribes he employed from among monks were to jot down even the smallest and most insignificant aspects of village life. If a farmer cut a shrub, it would be noted. If a barmaid bought a set of mugs, it would be noted. If a peasant repaired his roof, it would also be noted. All so the lord could brag about his growing wealth in more detail – as well as to know how huge a tax he can demand. Among these records, my lodger found things which would nowadays be considered confidential and back then probably even a taboo to keep.
The lord, in his greed and lust for knowledge of his subjects lives, demanded medical information of the local women and children. Men and elderly didn’t matter to him in that much detail and yet for some reason he was extremely focused on the fertility of “his” women. The records contained information that should only be privy to their midwives and by the notes on the margins, the monks were clearly uncomfortable about gathering. Yet thanks to those records, a surprising anomaly was found.
One year, there was an impossibly high spike in infant mortalities and deaths in childbirth. The few babies who were delivered safely however, would then suffer from malnutrition and disease. Reason for it, was unexplained and likely unexplainable malady, which struck all the women in surrounding lands causing them to not produce any milk. This, combined with a high number of bovine deaths made obtaining some kind of substitute unlikely. It is possible to feed an infant a diet of watery porridge made from milk of a different animal. It is not advisable and will not nourish one as greatly as proper milk of their mother, yet desperate people could resort to such methods. Seeing as cows were dying off in the region, the milk would have to come from a different animal. The distaste for cows likely would have followed as a result of superstition – the herds which once gave these people prosperity have all abandoned them in their time of need, as if they wished for them to starve… yet even that theory was not to either of our satisfaction.
But that’s when the lodger told me of the local legends, as well as notes he pieced together from forgotten scrolls tucked away in the monasterial archives.
“As said by Arthur Conan Doyle. Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.” - the lodger said, starting his tale. I wish I believed more strongly in this quote. I wish I did not listen to the serpent whispering in my ear, tempting me with the fruit of knowledge, saying “Go! Go into the Schweinwald Forests and see for yourself!”… alas, that I ultimately did.
The story went like this:
The monks, faced with the unrest and death filling the region, rushed to investigate the forces plaguing the lands. It was an alliance of clergymen, village elders, midwives, hermits, folk healers and anyone who had any authority over the people or knowledge of either the scientific or supernatural. But right when a messenger was supposed to leave for the lord’s castle, a frightened cattle hand, his face white as a corpse ran into the monastery screaming of monsters and devils with such fervor that even the calmest, most senior of monks felt disturbed. The man was restrained, but only calmed down once he was given communion and received a rosary to hold. A scribe wrote down the man’s entire confession, as he was given apparent verbal permission to do. I will not repeat another man’s sins – they were common and unrelated to his recent madness. What led to his flight towards the monastery was a discovery of a bloodied ring on the forest trail. He picked it up hoping to find the clearly rich owner and get a reward and if that fails, selling the ring to the crooked miller who ‘clearly dealt in such goods’… but as soon as he put the ring in his pocket, he noticed that there are more traces of blood. He was either not too smart or too brave for his own good as he followed them, thinking he could track down and rescue the owner of the ring. Find the owner he did, but he was long past rescue. His arm was impaled on a stout branch of a nearby tree, legs ripped off and thrown into the bushes. The torso with another hand was lying right on the crossroads of the trail, multiple claw and bite marks over his whole body. The arm still attached to the torso held onto a broken sword and the torn black robes, stained with viscera and scattered all over the ground were pierced with tiny metal shards, later identified as pieces of chain shirt linkage. Whoever had died there had considerable wealth and was prepared to face a dangerous opponent, yet he was still ripped to shreds by something possessing inhuman strength.
Something which didn’t leave behind a head.
That was when he heard sounds of a dog barking. Fearing it was a hound of some local game warden who would likely mistake him for the killer – especially with the ring he now had in his pocket, he hid behind the bushes, observing the beast.
Yet it was no ordinary dog. Its barks sounded like that of any common dog, the tracks it left were in the size of an average guard dog and yet the entity in front of his eyes was several times the size of a regular hound. It was a giant, muscular, stocky mass. Its wide skull and powerful jaws seemed big enough that the beast could easily swallow whole an entire infant without even chewing. Its coat was short, brown with black spots but the beast had several scars of a recent battle on its sides. On its back the peasant saw what he first believed to be a horn, but in retrospect seemed more likely to be a shard from the broken sword. The legs propping up this monster also had prominent, bulging muscles which bore more resemblance to that of a horse. The thing was panting, its monstrous teeth exposed as the giant tongue lapped up fresh air The rows of fangs were stained crimson by a fresh kill… and it growled, slowly approaching the man’s hiding place. From that moment on, the confession script only used the word ‘demon’. The demon suddenly jumped towards the man, yet instead of harming him, it just looked deep into his eyes. The bulging, misshapen bulbs the beast had inside of its skull looked at its prey, the horrifying maw forming an expression which almost seemed to look ‘innocent’. But then the demon spoke to the man. It told him of the crimes committed by the lord of these lands. It praised the man for his greed and lust, yet chastised him as foolish for trying to trick it. The beast told him the entire ugly truth, which the poor cow hand could not avoid, for fear of being devoured by a force which was clearly satanic.
This noble, whose name was defaced and made unreadable in all these records, was an avaricious and boastful fellow. He always craved more – more knowledge, more wealth, more recognition. He did everything he could to achieve this – taxes, wars and land seizures as means of punishment greatly filled his coffers. Yet he never seemed to spend it on anything other than his own luxury and pursuits of further wealth. The information gathered for him by monks and bought in book form enriched his mind. Yet the secrets he learned he kept to himself, even when they could have been used to save lives. His money and his apparent wisdom brought many admirers, but they were all yes-men who wished only to use him in turn.
Thus, when he reached the limits of what he could achieve, he started to envy that which wasn’t his. The great herds of cattle, owned by the baron whose lands he bordered. These bovines were bigger, healthier and much more fertile than ones tended to by his villagers. It was clear he did not have the best of relations with the baron, and gossip of his dislike reached far and wide. Soon enough it was heard even by the most unlikely and hidden of people – including the local witch named Tekla.
She was a wise and respected woman, giving advice and remedies to people whose problems were of a more spiritual nature. Yet her knowledge included topics of greater and darker sorcery than scaring off recurring nightmares or banishing a rare monster or two. She felt like this noble was a kindred spirit to her, able and willing to learn the most vile secrets. She wished to mentor him, in order for her art to not be forgotten.
The noble agreed to her mentorship. The baron held too much influence for him to directly plot against so he figured that using magical means would yield his desired result much quicker. He didn’t want to steal the baron’s cows or strengthen his own though. His desires have at this point poisoned him to the point of wishing for the failure of these herds than success of his own. He wanted total humiliation for his opponent… and soon gained power to do so.
After some lessons from Tekla and studies of The Key of Solomon, he managed to call forth a demonic spirit. The spirit was bound and loyal to him, yet was initially very weak. Its form flickered in and out of existence, barely anchored to this world. So the noble first had to strengthen it. Flesh and blood are dangerous things to supply to a spirit, as it is likely to grow violent. Yet that is what the vile noble wished for - a violent spirit that will slaughter the herds of his enemy. Any collateral damage was simply to be expected. But he went above and beyond in what he supplied the beast with. He sent servants across various villages to adopt infants of poor families unable to feed their new child. Then, he took these infants to the spirit. But not in one piece though – they would first be cut up and ground until they became unrecognizable. He fed the hungry spirit these lumps of human flesh and blood through ritual burning. He lied to the being, telling it these lumps were beef. He never saw his subjects as people and his sinful greed was well known, yet no one at the time would have suspected him of such madness as infanticide. He himself was at times doubting his own sanity, yet always justified himself - 'These children were bound to die anyway. No one would feed them, so why not use them?'. At first the dog's form simply became more stable. Though still translucent, the edges of its body were clear. Through more awful offerings, the hound gained colors. It could be seen as what I would nowadays consider a Pit Bull Terrier. Yet the demon couldn't bite through flesh and passed through objects, so the offerings of meat still had to be burned. But with just a little bit more, the monster learned how to do it and grew in size too. Soon, the noble was able to hatch his plan.
In the dead of night, with a sword in hand and some armor hidden under robes for protection, the sorcerous noble led the spirit into the lands of his enemy, telling the delighted spirit that he found a place where many delicious offerings lie. The man could barely keep up with the excited, bloodthirsty beast as it grew more and more impatient with each step. Soon enough, they reached one of the baron’s villages, but alarmed by a cry of a baby heard through a window of a nearby home, the sorcerer hid.
But the demon did not stay hidden. It knew. It knew that the being which just cried out held the same smell as the offerings which it was given. It knew that the horned beasts its summoner was pointing to were not what he was feeding it up to this point.
The beast rushed inside the house, startling the inhabitants. The avaricious noble was forced to watch as his servant demon tore apart a whole family, starting with a newborn child held desperately by its mother. Limbs, blood and viscera splattered around the tiny cabin, soon leaving not a single human alive. What left the house was much larger than the hound which entered it. It ignored all of his summoner’s spells. The demonic horror, the mauler of children freed itself from its shackles and smiled at the cowardly magician who tricked it with insincere offerings.
The battle which followed was short, the demon victorious.
And it told all this to this terrified man simply so he’d let everyone know who is to blame for the deaths that would follow.
It left. Smiling and wagging its tail it left the terrified, confused man on the ground. He knows not how long it took him to get up and start running. He isn’t sure which direction he took when he did. But once his legs moved, his shattered mind would not let him stop until he found sanctuary.
The monks examined the ring, which still remained in the man’s pockets. This golden ornament held the seal of the noble which this peasant accused of sorcery. Holding onto a signet ring of a murdered noble would normally be tried as robbing a corpse, but the horrifying tale the man presented felt too significant for the monks to disregard. As such, they kept him safe inside the monastery, sending the messenger to the neighboring baron instead of the likely dead sorcerer.
Yet even before the messenger returned, the monks kept receiving other visitors. From the lowest of peasants to traveling merchants to knights, clergy and even self-titled monster hunters and mages all social strata came with news of gruesome murders, plagues, child killings, disappearances and demon sightings. One mage promised to ‘right the wrongs of our foolish kin’ and set out to kill the monster, yet the monks never heard from him again. Nor did they seem to trust him – after all, sorcery came from the devil and more devilry could not fix it.
Then the messenger returned. In a state of panic, not unlike the man who prompted his mission, he recounted all that he’s seen on his way to and from the baron’s lands. Dead cow carcasses were scattered all over the fields and pastures. The villages were empty, save for an occasional priest or a frightened child who somehow eluded the beast. They all spoke of the same sight, yet with varying intensity. The hamlet closest to the monastery managed to put up some token resistance against the devil as a passing man-at-arms rallied the inhabitants. But after the beast fled, most of the people were struck by a strange sickness sapping away all their strength. They quickly figured out that all meat in the village has gone bad and only those who did not eat it were left healthy… but that only meant that a single, young family of three was left with the gruesome duty of burying the dead.
Next villages were not so lucky as to have well equipped defenders. The beast smashed down all doors and consumed the local children, mauling any adult standing in its way. The cows were attacked too, of course, but it seemed like the demon lost interest in them. With each devoured child, its thirst for the flesh of our young grew and though it mauled and maimed several bulls, not all of its fights with the bovine herds turned deadly and it seemed content with running circles around them, spreading foul black miasma which infected the poor animals with an unknown plague.
In the final few villages there were no survivors and the houses were smashed into the tiniest of wooden shards. Only small, bloody tracks of a seemingly normal sized dog stood in the middle of these ruins.
The baron was taking refuge in his castle and took the threat of the beast seriously. He was desperate for any news about the outside world and the horrifying rampaging monster plaguing his lands. He was not at all surprised that the avaricious noble was behind this. Yet unlike the corrupt sorcerer, he was more interested in defeating the ever-growing demon than any sort of compensation for his losses. By the looks of things, the beast was now heading back to the lands of its sorcerer and continue its reign of terror there. The Baron allowed the messenger to take a short rest and promised to find Tekla and bring her to the monastery with all of her tomes and artifacts so that the monks can learn whatever is necessary to stop the demon in its tracks.
The Witch wasn’t hard to find. Brought in chains, she hung her head in shame, clearly regretting becoming a mentor to a fool who’d bring upon such great destruction. Torture wasn’t needed to extract her confession and promise of cooperation. Due to the weight of her crimes it was still given though, only her dark powers keeping such a vile, old woman alive through the horrifying beatings. She soon led the local forces in their final struggle against the demon, which was now named The Bull Mauler. The witch employed local stone workers to construct a circle of rocks in the forest. This circle, which stands to this day was back then said to be covered in intricate paintings and decorations which told the story of this legend. Yet they have so completely faded that not even the monks knew anything about them.
But that was not important. What was important, was that this stone formation of two concentric rings and one large rock carved into a heptagonal shape, would serve as an enchantment which bound the Bull Mauler to the rock as long as certain conditions were fulfilled. These conditions would require big sacrifices from the local people. But it was either that or death. The village closest to the sealing stone had to change its name, as would the forest it was located near. No cows could be herded. No beef eaten. No materials made from a cow were permitted in the village. Most importantly, nobody could spill cows blood anywhere near the stones. If these sacrifices continued to be observed, then in several centuries, the demon’s power would fade from the world.
It was left unclear exactly how long the beast had to be sealed. Nor were the details of the ritual written down. Only scattered mentions in other documents suggested that some people died that day, including Tekla herself. From that day onward the village was known as Schweinwald and after several years of poverty and hunger, the land slowly recovered.
I was… fascinated by this tale. Something told me there was a hint of authenticity to this legend. The temptation, my earnest wish to finally meet a supernatural being. My imp of the perverse planted a thought deep inside. “Go and spill the blood there.” “It cannot be real.” “Maybe it is but the beast will be weak – and surely thankful!” “You won’t regret it!”
...that day, I visited a butcher and bought a liter of cows blood.
It wasn’t easy to find the stone. I thought it would be left in an obvious place, like the crossroads which held the corpse of the sorcerous noble. But it was in a deep, wild, hidden reaches of the forest. The stones too were overgrown and no longer cared for. After ripping off the vines and moss dirtying the sealing place of the vile beast of Schweinwald I poured the blood offering all over it, my heart ready to leap out of my chest. At first nothing happened. No change in the air, no sudden, fiery explosion, no magical lights blinding my vision, not a thing at all. But then I felt a presence. A soothing, small, animal presence, standing right behind me. As I turned around I found a dog standing there, wagging its tail. The dog was an american bull-terrier mix, although clearly abandoned and uncared for. It seemed to smile at me and wagged its tail. Then, I noticed its shadow. Its collosal, beastly shadow with many mouths, skulls and tails, looking more like a mythical guardian to the underworld than any domestic dog ever bred on this earth. My hair stood up, my limbs shaking in fear as the hulking shadowy creature smiled at me just like the small abandoned, seemingly friendly dog currently smiled and with this mocking, sneering grimace it whispered with its many human tongues “I will return for you. I will return once I breed a thousand young. And I will exact my thanks onto you and all of your children if you choose to sire them. Rejoice human! Rejoice! For you and the countless infants on your pathetic earth shall become force for the Gula Satanas!”
I ran. Terrified of the smiling, laughing beast I ran through the forest just like the man who first discovered the noble’s mutilated corpse. I ran back to the lodge, gathered up my belongings and excused myself as I took flight back to my home country. At first I tried to lead a normal life, deciding to forget about the demon which I cursed this earth with. Yet each time I looked upon a dog on the street I would see their shadows warp and smile at me. All of them smile, their heads full of many teeth, their gullets ready to receive blood of the innocent.
The news of infants being disproportionately mauled by that one breed the monster most resembled began reaching me soon. I counted them and kept records, records more meticulous than even the monks of Schweinwald or the secret notes kept by the curator of Arkham. All modern sorcerers I tried to contact either laughed off my story as that of a paranoid civilian who was startled by a dog or stated that they do not have any information which could help me. FOOLS! Oh these fools! Their children too, shall one day be mauled! But I will try to do one last thing before the beast invades the shadows of my home. I have spent considerable wealth trying to find any artifact mentioned in the lodger’s story. A piece of the noble’s sword, his signet ring, maybe a bit of his chain linkage. Stories bind stories. Magic is assigning cause to an effect. If I can delude myself enough that one of these holds any power against the beast I just might be able to defeat it in my last conscious moments.
I have procured a dagger which was said to be made from the shards of that failed sword. If all goes well, The Bull Mauler will die with me.
As for its children, the degenerate maddened spawn which still continue to maul countless innocents… I hope other humans are wise enough to get our planet rid of them.
...God Help me, I can already hear its laugh.