The Wolf of Ansbach Dressed as an Official

When: 1685 date from records made at the time
Where: Neuses near Windsbach, Principality of Ansbach (Franconia), Germany
Verdict: Explained

Locals believed a child-killing wolf was the reincarnation of a hated official – after the hunt they dressed the carcass in his clothes and hanged it from a gibbet.

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49.25°, 10.80° · dimmed: other phenomena within 1,500 km

What happened

In 1685 a wolf appeared in the Principality of Ansbach in Franconia; it first attacked livestock and then began killing children. People quickly became convinced it was a werewolf – the reincarnation of a recently deceased, cruel official (Pfleger), Michael Leicht, whose death no one had mourned. A great hunt was organised. Near the village of Neuses by Windsbach, beaters with dogs drove the animal out of the forest, and as it fled it leapt into an uncovered well, where it was killed. The dead wolf was paraded through the Ansbach marketplace: it was dressed in human clothes, its muzzle was cut off, and a mask, wig and beard were put on its head to make it look like the late official. It was then hanged from a gibbet for all to see. Engravings of this “execution” survive.

Witnesses

The people of the Principality of Ansbach and participants in the hunt; the event was recorded in contemporary engravings and broadsheets, and in the 19th century in poems by Franz von Kobell and others.

Explanations and hypotheses

The attacks were most likely the work of a real wolf – in 17th-century Europe, after the devastation of the Thirty Years' War, wolf attacks on people were not rare. Dressing the carcass as the dead official shows how werewolf belief blended with fear and collective anger: the ritual “execution” of the animal was both a punishment of hated authority and a way of releasing fear.

Explained The phenomenon has a widely accepted, down-to-earth explanation.

Sources

More: Wikipedia (en)