Watercolor Of The Coolest Hat In The World

Pen and ink watercolor painting of a really cool hat.

Partial History of Werewolves:
Year 100-75 BC—The great Roman poet Virgil speaks of the powers of the werewolf Moevis, from whom he claims to have learned many secrets of magic, including the raising of the dead.
Year 28 AD—Jesus of Nazareth performs a successful exorcism on two werewolf/ghoul-like men who live among the dead in the cemetery outside of Gadarenes on the shore of the Sea of Galilee.
Year 55—Simon Magus, a great Magician, attempts to usurp the role of Jesus in the early Christian movement by claiming to be the true messiah. It is recorded that he has the power to transform himself into a variety of animal and human shapes and to accomplish miracles. He soon runs a fowl of St. Peter and the other disciples.
150—Apuleius’ Golden Ass records the poet’s travels to Thessaly where he beholds a wide assortment of magical practices and the transformation of humans into animals after he, himself, is changed into an ass.
In the year 410—in his City of God book, the great Doctor of the Roman Catholic Church St. Augustine relates the account of certain sorceresses in the Alps who give their unsuspecting victims a special kind of cheese that transforms them into beasts of burden.
435—St. Patrick arrives in Ireland and discovers that among his flock are many families of werewolves.
650—Paulus Aeginda describes “melancholic lycantropia” as a black and dismal frame of mind that causes some people to leave their homes and to wonder the cemeteries, taking refuge among the tombstones. As these lycanthropes become increasing melancholy, they see themselves as werewolves.

731— In Saint Bede the Venerable’s Ecclesiastical History of England he describes a host of were-men that haunt the night for babies blood.
774—the chronicles of Denys of Tell-Mahre describe the wolflike human monsters that terrorized the region known today as Iraq.
840—Saint Agobard, the archbishop of Lyons, writes in his Liber contra insulam vulgi opinionem of the evil demons of the mountains that appear as man beasts.
906—The Canon Episcopi by Abbot Regino of Prum condemns as heretical any belief in witchcraft and/or in the power of sorcerers to change people into animals. If anyone believes they have the ability to fly through the air or to transform a human into a creature of another species, they are slaves of Satan. At this time the Catholic clergy is more interested in stamping out all allegiance to the Goddess Diana and regards that as primitive superstition, but suggestion that witches possess some demonic kind of magical powers and that men and women can be transformed into werewolves and other beings by invoking demons. Unfortunately in 1233 the church smothers all such rational thinking with the black smoke of the Inquisition.
930—Pope Leo hears of two sorceresses in Germany who for their own amusement transform certain of their unwitting guests into animals. One victim regains his human form by eating roses.
1101—Prince Vseslav of Polock, an alleged Ukranian werewolf, dies.
1182—Giraldus Camrensis, a Welsh historian, author of Itineraium Cambranine, learns of an Irish tribe whose members transform themselves into wolves during their Yule tide feast.
1195—Guillaume de Palerne, “William the werewolf”, composed.
1198—Marie de France composes Bisclavret, the “Lay of a werewolf.”
1205—the Chronicles of Abbolt Ralph of Essex describe strange demons that appear after a thunderstorm.
1208—the Cathar Sect becomes so popular among the people that Pope Innocent III considers it a greater threat to Christianity then that of the Islamic warriors who pummeled the Crusaders. To satisfy his outrage, he orders the only crusade ever launched against fellow Christians by attacking the Albigensians, as the Cathars of southern France were known.
1214—in his report to the Emperor Otto IV, Gervaise of Tilbury reports cases in Auvergne in which men were seen to take the form of wolves during the full moon.
1220—Caesarius of Hiesterbach, author of Dialogue of Miracles, describes numerous accounts of shapeshifting pacts with Satan and mysterious flights through the air. The bishops of Tyre records an incident of a sorceress on the island of Cyprus transforming an English soldier into a beast of burden.
1224—Konrad, the first papal Inquisitor in Germany, condemns witches to the stake for worshipping Satan and producing diabolical monsters to do their biding.
1233—Pope Gregory IX urges other bishops to follow Konrad’s lead and to become more vigorous in ridding Europe of shape shifting witches. It is well known that Satan can appear in the form of a black cat, a wolf, a giant toad or any form he wishes. Thus it follows logically that his slaves possess the same abilities of diabolical transformation. The Inquisition is founded in 1233 to eradicate the practice of witchcraft. The chief components which define witchcraft are the ability to shape shift, the capability to fly and/or to ride objects through the air, and the use of cannibalism, child murder, blood libals, salves, animal familiars, and the invocation of demons to achieve power.
1246—Montsegur, the center of Albigensian residence, falls. Hundreds of Cathars are burned at the stake. The head quarters of the Inquisition is established in Toulouse.
1252—Pope Innocent IV issues a papal bull, Ad Extirpanda, that places Inquisitors about the law. Every ruler and commoner must assist the work of the Inquisition or face excommunication.
1257—the church officially allows torture as a means of forcing witches, werewolves, shape shifters and other heretics to confess.
1275—a woman in Toulouse is found guilty of sexual intercourse with an incubus and of giving birth to a child who is half wolf.
1300—Volsunga, the great Viking saga, depicts an outlaw father and son who become werewolves and establish a dynasty wealthy and powerful knights Templar are accused of heretical acts, suck as invoking Satan, having intercourse with succubi and worshipping demons that appeared as large black cats.

1320—in Practica, an influential instructor manual written by Father Bernard Gui an English Franciscan, shows witch hunters are urged to pay particular heed to appending women who cavort with the Goddess Diana and who transform their victims into other shaped creatures for Serfdom.
1324—Ireland’s first witchcraft trial occurs when Alice Kyteler is found guilty of consorting with a demon who could appear as a tall man, a black cat, a shaggy dog, or an Ethiopian.
1336—in a version of Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Parzival, Klaus Wisse and Philipp Colin insert takes of humans being transformed into animals.
1344—witch hunters announce that they have found a wolf child at Hesse.
1407—Werewolves are tortured and burned during witchcraft trails at Basel.
1440—Gilles de Rais is tried and burned for child murders and blood drinking and for worshipping Satan in both human and animal form.

1458—The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin is translated from the Hebrew. This legendary manuscript deals with the summoning of tutelary spirits and stresses a strong belief in every person developing the higher self that exists within.
1484—Pope Innocent VIII so deplores the spread of witchcraft in Germany that he issues the papal bull Summis Desiderantes Affectibus and authorizes two trusted Dominican inquisitors, Heinrich Institoris (Kramer) and Jakob Sprenger, to squelch demonology in the Rhineland.
1486—St. Malleus Maleficarum, the “Hammer of the Witches” by Institoris and Sprenger is published and quickly becomes the ‘bible’ of the heretic-hunters. Malleus earnestly refutes all those who would claim that the works of demons exist only in troubled human minds. Certain angels fell from Heaven and to believe otherwise is to believe contrary to the true faith. And now these fallen angels, these demons are intent upon destroying the human race. Any persons who consort with demons and become witches and shape shifters must recant their evil ways or be put to death.
1521—three werewolves of Poligny, accused of having eaten children and consorted with wild she-wolves, confess to having achieved their transformation from a magic salve. They are burnt at the stake.
1541—a Paduan werewolf dies after torture, and after his inquisitors hack off his arms and legs searching for the wolf hair that he wore on his inside.
1550—Witekind interviews a self-confessed werewolf at Riga. Johann Weyer (Weir), a critic of the Inquisition takes up the post of doctor at Cleve. Weyer believes in the power of Satan, but he believes that the devil has only deluded certain men and women into believing that they have supernatural powers as witches and shape shifters, thus causing them to worship dark forces rather than God.
1555—Olaus Magnus records (Historia de gentibu septenrionalibus) his observation that the werewolves of Livonia put on a girdle of wolf skin, drink a cup of beer, and utter certain magic words to accomplish their transformation from human to wolves.
· 1556—in the eleventh book of his Marvels, Job Fincel tells of a lycanthrope of Padua who when his wolf-claws were cut later appeared in human form with his hands cut. Fincel also relates an account of an old chateau inhabited by a number of cat people.
1573—Gilles Garnier is burned as a werewolf.