Page:Lays and Legends of Germany (1834).djvu/270

 himself that they were so, he threw off a girdle which he wore, and became a Wehr-wolf; yet such Wehr-wolf does not look exactly like an ordinary wolf, but something different. No sooner had he, after thus transforming himself, fled to a neighbouring meadow in which a young colt was grazing, than he seized upon it and instantly devoured it, hair, skin, and all.

After this he hastened back again, put on once more his girdle, and stood as before in his human form, After a little while, when they all stood up together, they went there way home towards the city, and as they passed by the city gate, this same man complained bitterly of a pain in his inside. Upon this, he who had watched him, whispered secretly in his ear, ‘That I can easily believe; if a man crams a horse, with his hair, skin, and all into his stomach.’ To this the other replied, ‘Hadst thou only said this to me when we were in the forest, thou shouldst never have said it more.’

A woman had assumed the shape of a Wehr-wolf, and had in this manner fallen upon the herds of a shepherd whom she hated, and thus infficted on him grievous injuries. The shepherd, however, succeeded in wounding her, by an arrow-shot in the haunch, so that it crept into a bush. Thither the shepherd proceeded, fully expecting that he would now completely overpower the ravager, but he there found a woman busily employed in staunching, with a piece of her garment, the blood which was streaming from the wound.

.—This further extract from ’s Deutsche Sagen, Band 1. s. 293—294, is a proof of the existence among the superstitions of Germany, of a popular belief in the existence of the Wehr-wolf,