The Deuill who hath a readye eare to listen to the lewde motions of cursed men.

In High Germany, in the towns of Quadrath and Bedburg near Cologne, was born and raised Stubbe Peeter. He was inclined to evil from the start, practising wicked arts from his twelfth year to his twentieth, and until the day he died; bursting with the damnable desire for magic, necromancy and sorcery, he made the acquaintance of all manner of spirit and fiend, and so forgot the God who made him and his Saviour who spilled his blood for our redemption. 

In the end, caring nothing for his salvation, he gave himself to the Devil, body and soul, for all time, all for the small carnal pleasures of this life, for the sake of earthly fame and reputation, even though he lost Heaven thereby. The Devil - who ever gives ear to the lewd desires of cursed men - promised him whatever his heart desired for the term of his mortal life.

But this vile wretch desired neither riches nor status, or the satisfaction of any pleasure he could imagine; rather, having a heart full of rapine and cruel bloody mind, desired only to turn his malice on men, women and children in the form of some beast, that he might so live without fear of capture or death for any bloody enterprise he set out on, whatever he had mind to commit. 

The Devil saw a fit instrument to work his mischief, possessed of a fiend's will to wickedness, the desire for destruction; and so he gave Stubbe Peeter a girdle to wear. The moment he wrapped it round himself, he was took on the appearance of a greedy, devouring wolf, powerful, great in might, with large eyes that sparkled in the night like burning brands, and a wide mouth full of teeth most sharp and cruel. Huge in body, weighty of paw. 

No sooner than he undid the girdle, he resumed the appearance of a man, as if he had never been otherwise. 

Stubbe Peeter was well pleased. 

Notes.

Quadrath. In the text, this is Cperadt; pronounce the cp as qu, and there it is. It is now the small town of Quadrath-Ichendorf, which is a little to the southwest of Bedburg. 

'the damnable desire for magic, necromancy and sorcery'. In the text, 'the Damnable desire of magick, negromancye, and sorcery'. Then as now, these terms could be used loosely, but one authentic way to account for the distinction being made is that Magic - the art of the Magi - deals in astrological tides and sidereal entities, Necromancy in the souls of the dead, and Sorcery in non-human earthbound spirits or demons. 

'and so forgot the God who made him and his Saviour who spilled his blood for our redemption'. This pamphlet belongs to the same genre as those concerned with Dr. Faustus and Agrippa; in their case, promising minds are drawn into illicit studies to their damnation, while Peter Stump is honestly more like Fred West. 

Like the genre of signs and wonders which it intersects, these spooky morality tales flow into the later Gothic, and so the supernatural and horror genres we enjoy today. 

It also, of course, belongs to the tradition of true life crime, which people in the Early Modern world also consumed. 

'he gave himself to the Devil, body and soul, for all time'. Again, like Faustus and Agrippa, and all manner of Witch and Jew. 'The Deuill who hath a readye eare to listen to the lewde motions of cursed men, promised to giue vnto him whatsoeuer his hart desired during his mortall life'.

'a heart full of rapine. In the text, a tiramous hart'. Looking through various dictionaries and grammars with a sense of deepening worry, I finally went with this being likely related to Latin Tiro and its cognates in the Romance languages, which has connotations of snatching, dragging off or throwing down. In the context of this story, that makes sense to me. 

'he gave Stubbe Peeter a girdle to wear'. So much to unpack. The echo of Eurasian Shamanic and aspects of Northern European magical praxis is striking, as is the resonance with the Grimoire literature, with its magical garments, girdles and garters. 

At this time, girdles were hanging belts, usually richly decorated, serving to emphasise the hips when worn with a bodice. That, however, is its feminine form; while something similar could be worn by men with one of the styles of shaped, fitted doublet, it would more likely assume the form of either a regular belt, or a sash, which would be especially worn for the sake of identification on military campaign. 

Peter Stump girds himself. Perhaps that is as far as we can go.