The Hunting Party

The Wolf of Normandy you’ve heard so much about was John Turner. He was born in Ireland, not France. He was not born in 1975. He was born much earlier. He was a much older man than you have all been led to believe. You see I know all about the man and how he changed the world. The myths told about him are mostly untrue. You see I knew him better than most, John Turner was my father.

At the end of October 2021, the world was a strange place, it’s hard to picture my father being any part of the madness that gripped Europe for the next two decades. Even harder to think, he was the symbol of everything to come. John Turner was quiet, reliable and respectable. He did not drink alcohol; he did not smoke cigarettes. He never touched drugs and he never chased women. He was the paragon of decency because he loved my mother. Anyone who tells a different story from this time is a liar.

On Saturday 31st October, Halloween was cancelled and Normandy was under an evening curfew. If I, nine-year-old Ben Turner, had looked out of my bedroom window late that evening. I would have seen John Turner, in his heavy coat and hat, cross the farmyard through the rain. I would have seen him move silently like a shadow and enter the barn. Inside the barn, he would walk round his Land Rover Defender and unlock his tool locker and take out a leather bag. He would check its contents. He would pick up a heavy ball hammer from the tools. He pulled an old flask out of the cupboard, soaked a rag and rubbed the metal of the hammer with a serious intensity. Then he put it inside the bag. He unlocked a box inside his tool locker and removed a revolver. He loaded the revolver, placing it inside the bag with the a box of bullets. He would methodically close everything and lock it. I could see this last part as I was not looking out of my bedroom window. I was hiding in the Defender.

He opened the driver's door, placing the leather bag on the back seat. He then exited and opened the barn door. He climbed into the front seat and drove out into the rain. He stopped, returning to close the barn doors; methodical ass ever. Everything my father did was deliberate, thought out and considered. I could hear the rain hitting the roof. Breaking curfew, John Turner, with his son hiding in the back of his vehicle, drove out into the night.

Avoiding the gendarme was easy in the countryside. He turned off the headlights and took the less travelled roads in between the farms. The rain was heavy, so visibility was difficult. Everything was a black, glassy mess. With no lights it looked like he was driving through oil.

He picked up his friend William in Ry, the next village over. It is now so long ago I cannot remember what they said to each other. Just it was friendly, familiar and normal. After a while, they pulled up onto a dirt track in the middle of nowhere. At the end of the track were three more vehicles and a small crowd of people. After William and my father got out, I had a better look and did a head count, there were seven of them.

My father was the leader. They all listened to him around the back of the tailgate of a jeep. They opened their bags and removed the most elaborate, hand carved, wooden, head masks. William put on a rabbit mask. There was a fox mask, a crude boar mask, a sheep mask, a ram mask with curly horns and a deer mask. Finally, my father removed his mask. It was a mask of a wolf, and he placed it on. They armed themselves. Only my father had a revolver. A couple of the other figures had sawn off shot guns. All of them were armed with blunt instruments; pipes, wrenches, crowbars. Then a sack of what seemed to be onions was emptied and they filled their pockets. Small sacks were handed out and then filled with what seemed to be bird seed. Then with no further instructions they stalked off towards the woods.

I knew it was wrong. I also knew I had to follow. This was not a conventional hunting party. My father was doing something new, something dangerous, and I wanted to watch. I wanted to be proud. So I followed, not directly; but in a flanking movement. My father’s friends were all hunters. Hunters in Normandy, are not the easiest quarry to stalk; although no one is sneakier than a nine-year-old boy.

Cutting through a neighbouring field, I made it to the other side of the woods. The masked troupe were not travelling silently but they were spread out like skirmishers. They strode out of the woods like avenging spirits. On the other side of the wood was a large agricultural hanger. Standing under a lamp over the entrance to the building was a policeman. He looked startled by the incoming posse. He withdrew his side arm, changed his stance and held his ground.

My father approached him. They spoke briefly. The door opened and the hunting party entered the building. For some reason the man whose job which was to enforce the curfew was ignoring it. I had to see what was happening. I had to know what was going on. I had to see into that building.

I ran to the back of the hanger. I hugged walls and watched my feet so I did not disturb gravel or splash puddles. I remember thinking that getting back in the car and home unseen would now be difficult but my adrenalin was driving me forward. I climbed a fire escape and tiptoed onto a low roof finding a window to peer in.

The large space was illuminated. There were nine figures in black capes all wearing white, genderless masks. There were also a handful of policemen. Then there was my father’s hunting party. Most the people were around the outskirts of the space eyeing each other with intent. The only people in the centre was one of the new masked figures, and my father, the Wolf and William, the Rabbit. I could not hear what was being said but the body language was aggressive. This was definitely not a friendly meeting.

There was a bird circling above my head. I could not see it in the light. I could sense it. Despite how engrossed I was in the events in the hangar, it was distracting me. I had looked up to see it. It was too dark. As I turned back to my window a large figure landed on top of me. I was grabbed and pulled up into the air. I can still see my father turning and staring at the window. Trying to work out the source of the sound.

The door to the hanger burst open. The large masked figure who plucked me off the roof like a hawk; tossed me into the middle of the space.

“We have a spy,” he said.

I could only see the bottom half of my father’s face. His jaw was open, his eyes flared; he was in shock.

“It appears Wolf, you have brought me a present.”

“That’s my son,” said my father.

The masked leader picked me up. A knife appeared from nowhere in his hand and he held it to my throat.

“Let go of my son.”

“Dad, help me.”

“Stupid child, there is no good and bad. That is just a fairy tale for children and the thoughtless,” said my captor.

I felt him twist the knife so the point pushed into the skin. My father, the Wolf, pulled out his revolver and pointed it at my assailant.

“Don’t be foolish, bullets cannot hurt a true malandanti,” he spat at my father.

“That does not appear to be true for your goons,” said the Wolf.

Quickly he flipped his aim three times and fired three times. He instantly killed two of the masked figures and one policeman. William, the Rabbit, barrelled into me knocking me clear and sending the man holding me out of reach. The hunting party burst into action. The shotguns were discharged. My father emptied the rest of his revolver. The blunt tools were pulled out and the hurting began. The animals of the countryside ripped through everyone, in seconds. The opposing masked leader was left alone. Then the Boar tried to tackle him and found his arm snapped like kindling. The Ram was next and was sent flying into the wall. The figure appeared to grow in size. He clenched his fists and the Fox and the Deer collapsed in pain. My father reached into his pocket and pulled out the bag of birdseed. He split the bag and tossed its contents at the figure. The seeds that struck him exploded in a burst of white flame. The figure screamed in pain. He walked up to him with the heavy ball hammer and brought it down onto the centre of his skull in one sweep. The figure collapsed dead.

“Bullets might not be a problem. But old iron seems to do the job,” said my father.

The whole room stopped.

“That is going to cause some problems”, said Rabbit.

My father ignored him. He removed his mask and came over to me. I was crying. His eyes were wide open; I could see his worry. The hunters were clearing up the space and killing everyone. The policemen and the masked figures were being brutally dispatched. The entrance burst open and the Sheep threw in the policeman, who had been guarding the door. He was dead, he had a knife in his chest. The hunting party was removing the onions from their pockets and shoving them in the mouths of every dead man and woman. When an onion was shoved into the mouth of my nemesis, the head honcho, he fizzed and cackled like electricity and dissolved into a puddle on the floor.

“Are you hurt?” my father asked.

I shook my head.

“Why are they putting garlic in every one’s mouth, are they vampires?”

“That’s not garlic,” my father replied, “you can’t kill a Frenchman with garlic.”

“What is it?”

“A special type of fennel.”

The answer made no sense so I just hugged him. He picked me up into the air and I buried my head into his shoulder.

“Wolf, this is a problem,” said Rabbit.

“My boy is here use my other name.”

“No benandanti has killed a full blood malandanti for over two hundred years.”

“He was going to hurt my boy.”

“No full blood malandanti has died on a day that was not an ember night for over a thousand years.”

“I don’t see why; it was surprisingly easy.”

“We are going to have to explain this to the council.”

“Fuck the council.”

I lifted my head up. This was the first time I had ever heard my father swear. He walked me out of the carnage and sat me down facing him.

I could not help it; I began to cry again. My father was strict but he was also kind. He had never raised a hand to me or my brothers. The violence and mystery I had witnessed was too much to bear. I was facing a stranger, a ghost in my life. That hurt more than anything. I could see my father’s mind racing contemplating everything. I could see hundreds of questions racing through his eyes. After what felt like an eternity he just said.

“You must never speak to anyone what you saw tonight. No one. Only me.”

“What’s a malandanti?” I replied.

“A malandanti is a witch.”

“What’s a benandanti?”

There was the longest pause.

“A different type of witch, their opposite.”

“Are you…”

“Yes I am a witch. But I am also so very tired of the whole thing, I think it is time for a third type.”

Many books have been written about this event. All of them have got it wrong. Cambridge this year is even offering a political course on it. The world did not even know about the existence of the two factions for another eighteen months. It was the events in Rome in March 2023, that exposed the secret war between the malandanti and the benandanti. That they were the real pullers of the puppet strings behind all the recent turmoil. It was another two years before the Wolf’s third way was exposed. His appearance after the catastrophe in Berlin in May 2025; announcing the change that was needed. This third losing faction is now romanticised through that famous London poster. That iconic image; the heavily stylised graphic of his mask. You cannot walk through a major city in the world without seeing a teenager wearing it on a t-shirt.

The truth is I was there. I witnessed it all first hand. The European Witch War which changed the life of every living being on this planet, was caused by me; a nine-year-old sneaking out at night and breaking the curfew.

Thank you for reading my tall tale.

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