Two Italian Werewolf Nights: A Song Set in Irpinia and a Town Square in Spoltore

In January 2016 an Italian songwriter released a fourteen-minute film about a man who answers the moon and comes back changed, but not into a wolf. In December a hill town in Abruzzo staged a night of fortune-tellers, mulled wine and a lecture asking whether its own werewolf is memory or delirium.

"Il Pumminale," January 29

Rolling Stone Italia reported on January 29, 2016 that "Il Pumminale" is the video previewing Vinicio Capossela's album Canzoni della Cupa, due March 4, directed by Lech Kowalski. Irpinianews followed on January 30, calling it the album's first single and describing a 14-minute short that stages "the legend tied to the mysterious figure of the werewolf."

Capossela, as both outlets print him, speaks of a world with "no clear distinction between human and animal."

The lyrics Irpinianews quotes sketch the story. On a moonlit night, Mastro Giuseppe leaves his house when "the moon has sent him the call of the Pumminale." He leaves his wife and daughter and walks out onto the bad roads. At a crossroads, in a bramble thicket, he meets his own demon. "If we were six, now we are seven," he is told by six masciare, witches, in the woods. Back home in the morning it all seems a dream, but he has left "a crack in the world" and carried a fever back with him. He understands the evil of the Pumminale, "the werewolf inside" that, "instead of wolf," has turned him "into a pig."

That turn is the song's twist. Irpinianews glosses the folk belief behind it this way: people born on Christmas night, "guilty of having come into the world on the same day as Jesus," are doomed to a double nature, giving in to the animal on Friday nights from March 1 to the last Friday before Christmas. In this telling the change comes with fierce heat, torn-off clothes, a plunge into ponds or puddles, and inhuman cries. A needle prick to the hand, or a crossroads, where the wolf stops because it resembles a cross, is how you survive it. The site gives no source for these details beyond "the most common tradition," so treat them as relayed, not documented.

The Spoltore night, December 7

Across the Apennines to the north-east, in Abruzzo, the Giornale di Montesilvano announced on November 28 the town's first "Notte del Lupo Mannaro" for Wednesday, December 7. From sunset the old centre would reproduce "the ancient legend of the Werewolf of Spoltore" through a theatrical piece and a "mysterious" game, with an esoteric market, fortune-tellers, witches, ambiguous priests and costumed courtesans, mulled wine, mutton dishes and chestnuts. The start time was 4 p.m. in Piazza d'Albenzio and in the theatre of the Società Operaia e di Mutuo Soccorso. The organisers named were that society and PiùAbruzzo.

At 5 p.m. Spoltore-born anthropologist Maria Concetta Nicolai was to lecture on "Spoltore's werewolf: residues of an archaic historical-cultural process, heritage of oral tradition; or fear and delirium of the social collective?" (translated from the printed title, opening clause omitted).

Spoltore Notizie reported on December 10 that "very many" filled the square, and that the lecture ran an hour from the Babylonian Gilgamesh and Homer to the Bible, Galen, the Salerno school and Marie de France's lays. It claims that for "very many" townspeople the werewolf "is not at all a fairy tale." Treat that with care. The outlet says it took full part in devising and staging the event, so its report is the organisers' own. And no source read for this piece, including the announcement, gives the text of the Spoltore legend itself.

A moon that wasn't

The announcement's subtitle calls it "a night of full moon." On December 7, 2016, the Moon was not full. The U.S. Naval Observatory's phase data show First Quarter at 09:03 UTC that day (10:03 in Italy) and Full Moon on December 14 at 00:05 UTC. The announcement's body text speaks of werewolves who turn "during nights of full moon," which is the myth in general. It is the headline claim about the date that doesn't match the sky.

Reading the two together

The song uses the Christmas-night, Friday-night tradition to say something about duality. The piazza night uses a local legend as a tourist draw. Neither presents a sighting.

Bottom line

Per Rolling Stone Italia and Irpinianews, Vinicio Capossela's "Il Pumminale" put the Irpinian werewolf tradition into a 14-minute short in January 2016, and its protagonist ends up a pig, not a wolf. Per the Giornale di Montesilvano and Spoltore Notizie, Spoltore staged its first "Notte del Lupo Mannaro" on December 7, billed as a full-moon night when the Moon was at First Quarter. No sighting is claimed anywhere.

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Attribution / source table

• Claim: Video previewing Canzoni della Cupa (Mar 4), directed by Lech Kowalski; Capossela's "doubleness" statement
  Attribution: Rolling Stone Italia, Jan 29, 2016
  Link: Rolling Stone Italia
• Claim: First single; 14-minute short; lyrics quoted; Christmas-night tradition, Fridays Mar 1–Christmas, survival details
  Attribution: Irpinianews, Jan 30, 2016
  Link: Irpinianews
• Claim: First Notte del Lupo Mannaro: date, venues, market, performance, lecture title, organisers, "plenilunio" subtitle
  Attribution: Giornale di Montesilvano, Nov 28, 2016 17:33
  Link: Giornale di Montesilvano
• Claim: After-report: crowd, actors, lecture ranging from Gilgamesh to Marie de France, "not a fairy tale"; outlet's own participation
  Attribution: Spoltore Notizie (Marco Manzo), Dec 10, 2016
  Link: Spoltore Notizie
• Claim: Moon phases: First Quarter 2016-12-07 09:03 UTC; Full Moon 2016-12-14 00:05 UTC
  Attribution: U.S. Naval Observatory moon-phase data
  Link: USNO API

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Legal / disclaimer footer

Entertainment and cryptid-news commentary only. Nothing here confirms a werewolf. The song lyrics, folk beliefs, event details and quotes belong to their sources and are attributed as published; Italian passages are translated by the desk. The map location is approximate to town level.