True Horror with Anthony Head

[first lines]

Himself - Presenter:
When I was in 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer', the part I played, Giles, was the fount of all knowledge when it came to the world of the occult. And I have to say that Giles's fascination with the paranormal has left me a little curious. To discover why, in a time of apparent scientific enlightenment, the supernatural should be as important to us today as it was hundreds of years ago, I'm going in search of a creature that taps into our basest instincts. I'm going deep into the lair of the werewolf.

[looking at a text written in French]

Himself - Presenter:
This psychiatric report describes the startling case of a modern-day werewolf. In 1989, in the French city of Bordeaux, the violent death of a local man led police to uncover a story worthy of any horror writer. A 28-year-old man was arrested and, when questioned, did little to deny his part in the murder. But what set this case apart was the reason he gave for the killing; because the man claimed the murder happened just after he transformed into a werewolf.

Himself - Presenter:
If you look through the history books, you find that werewolves are far from a recent creation. But, frustratingly, many of the facts have been lost in the mists of time. But I have found one detailed account of a strange ritual dating back over two thousand years. It's my first real clue to the origins of the werewolf legend.

[the movie cuts to Anthony Head having tea and lunch near the Parthenon in Athens, Greece]

Himself - Presenter:
To start my journey, I'm going - well, actually - to the last place I'd expect to find a werewolf: Greece. I'm going to investigate a story of retribution, human sacrifice, and cannibalism.

Himself - Presenter:
I've come to Greece to explore a two-thousand-year-old account of werewolves. The account clearly details a ceremony of human sacrifice that culminated in a person transforming into a wolf. The legend even goes so far as to give an exact location for the site of the sacrificial altar: Mount Lykaion, deep in the heart of the Peloponnese, about two hundred kilometers southwest of Athens. A group of American archeologists from Pennsylvania University, led by Dr. David Romano, are planning an excavation here soon, which they hope will corroborate the stories of human sacrifice and their possible links to werewolves.

Himself - Presenter:
When I first began looking into werewolves, even though we had a werewolf as a regular character in 'Buffy', it dawned on me that, outside of the man/Moon/wolf scenario, I actually know nothing about them at all. In fact, I always thought that werewolves were something concocted for the movies, rather than genuinely terrifying beasts. But as I really got into it, I came to realize just how widespread werewolves are in popular culture: not just in films, but even in the stories my children used to read, from Red Riding Hood to Brothers Grimm.

Himself - Presenter:
There is little doubt that something strange went on here. Were there really werewolves here? Or were they simply a way for the ancient Greeks to discourage the practice of human sacrifice? Whatever the case, the story of Mount Lykaion shows just how far back the legend of the werewolf dates; just how early on they became a part of our culture.

Himself - Presenter:
It appears that, as soon as mankind began to write, stories about werewolves began to appear. Christian writers seem to have embraced the beast with a particular passion. There are references sprinkled throughout the Bible, from Benjamin to Nebuchadnezzar. Here we are in Genesis, verse 27. 'Benjamin shall raven as a wolf; in the morning he shall devour the prey, and at night he shall divide the spoil.' And in the fifteenth century, Emperor Sigismund brought together a council of theologians who finally decided that werewolves were a reality.

Himself - Presenter:
So, werewolves. I must admit I would never have connected werewolves with ancient Greece.

David Gilman Romano:
Well, there are many ancient stories that link this place, Mount Lykaion, and the sanctuary of Zeus with the possibility of human sacrifice; and some of the stories involve werewolves.

Himself - Presenter:
What are you hoping to find here?

David Gilman Romano:
Well, we're hoping to find many things, but among them would be whether or not the ancient Greeks really sacrificed humans here on this altar, which is twenty, twenty-five meters higher up.

[He points upward to the crest of the ridge]

Himself - Presenter:
Let's go have a look.

[They climb the ridge]

Himself - Presenter:
Wow. Sacrifice with a view!

David Gilman Romano:
This is one of the trenches that was excavated in the early twentieth century by Kourouniotes. He found the remains of bones, which he analyzed and found to be animal bones; but when we work here, we'd like to see if it's possible that the bones are human.

Himself - Presenter:
And if they are human bones, how does that relate to werewolves?

David Gilman Romano:
Well, the story that's recounted a number of times in antiquity is that if, a human being ate of human flesh, from a human sacrifice, then he would be turned into a werewolf for nine years. And it would take nine years of not eating human flesh for him to become human again.

Himself - Presenter:
Otherwise, he stays as a wolf?

David Gilman Romano:
[smiling] That's the story.

Himself - Presenter:
How would you say all these ancient myths found their way into popular culture? How did the werewolf make its way into the werewolf we know now?

David Gilman Romano:
Well, the stories were told and retold in antiquity, and in fact we have a summary of the story told to us by Augustine in the fourth or fifth century A.D., in which he recounts these various aspects of the Lykaion story, and it may be from that date that Christianity picked up the story.

Himself - Presenter:
To hunt the beast down, I'm going to travel to the Massif Central region of France, the scene of the most gruesome series of murders ever attributed to a werewolf. In order to find out more about the most devastating attack ever attributed to a werewolf, I've come to the quiet village of Sorgue, to meet the local werewolf expert, Jean Richard.

Himself - Presenter:
Jean Richard told me that the beast's deadly reputation became so widespread throughout the Massif Central region of France that even the King, Louis the Fifteenth, became involved. He offered a reward of six thousand pounds - that's more than half a million pounds today - for the body of the monster.

Himself - Presenter:
If you wanted to find a modern witch, then you could do far worse than to come to this Conference Center in Croydon, South London. I'm visiting the largest gathering of witches in the world. [reading from the printed program] Witchfest 2004 program. What've we got? "Making Your Magic Work Better." "Wand-Making Workshop." "Anatomy of a Spell." I think I'm in the right place.

Himself - Presenter:
You've got to buy your witch's hat and ram's horn somewhere.

Himself - Presenter:
Do you do potions or spells or anything?

Sorita Rankine:
Yeah, of course we do. We're witches! Of course we do. You know, potions and spells are often considered kind of slightly weird or slightly, you know, dull, if you like. But they can be done for positive purposes as well. Spells aren't done just for the sake of them. They take a lot of preparation. They take a lot of work. If we were to do spells every day, we'd be kind of knackered.

[during a dramatization of the trial of an alleged witch, Agnes, who is tortured by King James]

Ronald Hutton:
At this point, Agnes is being disbelieved by the king, and she seems to lose her temper; and what follows is one of the most incredible moments in the entire history of witchcraft.

Agnes Sampson:
[to King James] I wish that you did not disbelieve my words. For I know, I know what you said to your queen on your wedding night.

[King James looks shocked]

Himself - Presenter:
Over a period of three hundred years, forty to fifty thousand witches were killed as a result of the Witchcraft Act.

[last lines]

Himself - Presenter:
For us in the modern western world, witches are no longer a part of our lives. Or so we might think. But it only takes something unspeakable, inexplicable, to happen, for us to rekindle our belief in witchcraft. When any gruesome murder or horrific act against a child is uncovered, even now many people still attribute it to the evils of satanism or witchcraft. Throughout history, witches have been figures of fear. Many innocent people have become victims of irrational superstition. Outsiders falsely accused of doing the devil's work. In fact, many witches are just practitioners of alternative medicines and religion. What I wasn't expecting to find was that now, today, there are some witches who really are doing the devil's work. In some parts of the world, the belief in witchcraft has so corrupted men's minds, that hundreds of people, many of them children, are dying in a pursuit of a myth of magic. It's a troubling reminder that our darkest thoughts lie just under the surface; and it can take very little for true horror to emerge.