Oliver Pötzsch - The Werewolf of Bamberg

“You’re right.” said Georg, stretching. The long, strenuous day had clearly tired him out, as well. “I was in the Bamberg Forest today, and later I went over to St. Gangolf to pick up a few dead sheep. Even there, people are talking about this beast, and they think it can only be a werewolf.” He shook his head. “If the prince-bishop learns about this. .”

“Unfortunately, he already has,” Simon interrupted with a sigh, “from his own suffragan bishop, Sebastian Harsee. Do you know him? He’s really a disagreeable fellow.”

He briefly told about his meeting with Master Samuel and the dark suspicions expressed by the suffragan bishop.

“They want to put together a council to consider if it’s really a werewolf,” Simon concluded, “even though this Harsee bastard has already made up his mind. Thank God Samuel will also be on the commission-at least one enlightened voice in this crowd of superstitious and bigoted agitators.”

“But suppose it really is a werewolf?” Barbara asked anxiously. After helping Katharina clear the table, she sat down beside her brother Georg and looked around at everyone. “I mean, people have disappeared, severed body parts have been found, and then this furry creature. .”

“And don’t forget the horribly mangled stag carcass that Simon told us about yesterday, and things you hear from people who have traveled through the forest,” Magdalena added, turning to her father. “There may be nothing to it, but isn’t it possible that some beast is really lurking around Bamberg and causing this trouble? It doesn’t have to be a werewolf. Maybe it’s just a large wolf, or-”

“Good God, just stop this!” Bartholomäus shouted, stabbing his knife into the table. “I don’t want to hear anything more about this in my house. Werewolf? Bah! These are horror stories that only sow hatred and discord, as if we didn’t already have enough of that in Bamberg.” He stood up and stomped off to the downstairs bedroom, slamming the door behind him.

“What’s the matter with him?” Simon asked. “You might almost think tobacco doesn’t agree with him.”

“You’ll have to excuse him.” With a sigh, Katharina took off her apron and sat down in her fiancé’s empty chair. She stared disapprovingly at the knife in front of her, jammed into the top of the table, still quivering. “You’re not Bambergers,” she said softly, “and you don’t know what this city went through back then, when they burned hundreds of accused wizards and witches here. Bartholomäus just doesn’t want to go through all that again.”

“Even though, as the Bamberg hangman, it would bring him a lot of business,” Jakob replied sullenly. Then he started counting on his fingers. “Let’s see: if Bartholomäus receives two guilders each time he tortures a person and ten more for every witch put to the stake and burned, that would amount to-”

“You! You just can’t bear the fact that your brother is more successful than you are,” Georg burst out angrily. “Admit it, Father. Our uncle has really made something of himself here in Bamberg, and now he’s marrying the daughter of a city secretary, while back in Schongau you’re still cleaning garbage from the street. And that gets under your skin.”

Jakob looked down at the reeds on the floor, and spat. “Better to have your feet in the shit than to crawl up the perfumed asses of the noble gentlemen. By the way, that’s no way to talk to your father. What has your uncle taught you in the last two years?”

“More than you in ten.”

“Enough of this, now.” Katharina had jumped up and was glaring angrily at the father and son. “Perhaps some of you have forgotten, but we’ll be celebrating a wedding soon, and I want you all to get along. I invited you to Bamberg so Bartholomäus could finally be reconciled with his relatives. After all, we’re one family.” She pointed at Georg. “And you will apologize at once. That’s no way to speak to your father.”

For a while no one said a thing. Finally, Georg nodded. “Very well. I’m. . I’m sorry, Father.”

Jakob Kuisl remained silent, but Magdalena could see how he was struggling. He crushed his pipe stem between his teeth while exhaling little clouds of smoke like a smokestack. Finally, he nodded as well, but still not a word escaped his lips. Magdalena decided to change the topic and turned to Katharina.

“Was Bartholomäus already the Bamberg executioner back then, during the terrible witch trials?” she asked.

Katharina stared at her, at a loss. “I’m not sure. I was just a baby at the time. If he was here then, he couldn’t have been more than a young assistant, so it was no fault of his.”

“We hangmen are never at fault,” Jakob Kuisl said between two puffs on his pipe. “Even if the noble gentlemen wished we were. We are just the sword in their hands.”

“So Bartholomäus’s worries are actually justified.” Simon was thinking it all over as he slurped his strong brew. He, too, seemed glad that the quarrel between the father and the son had been put aside, at least temporarily. “If they really do set up a commission because of this werewolf, it won’t be long before the first burnings at the stake.” He turned to Jakob. “Think of Schongau. Wasn’t it your grandfather, back then, who beheaded and burned more than sixty women in that ill-fated witch trial? The whole town went crazy.”

“That was long ago,” Jakob growled. “The times were different.”

“Really?” Magdalena looked at her father, mulling it all over. “For my part, I pray that men have changed since that time. But I’m pretty skeptical. Even if-”

A knock at the door interrupted her words, and a shiver ran up her spine, as if something evil were lurking out there, demanding to be let in. The other members of the family looked questioningly at one another.

“Don’t worry,” Katharina said, trying to calm them. “That’s just my father. He insisted on picking me up personally today. After everything that has happened in the last few weeks, he doesn’t want me to walk alone through the dark backstreets.” She opened the door, and in stepped a portly gentleman wrapped in a heavy woolen cape with a hood, from which the rain dripped in little rivulets to the ground. A lantern dangling from his hand cast a dim, flickering light around him. Magdalena couldn’t suppress a smile. Katharina’s father looked as if someone had dumped a barrel of water over him, shrinking his clothing so it clung tightly to his body.

“Horrid weather outside,” he said, shivering. “Wouldn’t even allow a dog out in this weather.”

“Let’s hope it’s too wet and cold for the evildoers, as well,” Katharina responded with a smile. “You don’t look like you could scare them off very easily.”

She gestured to the others at the table. “But even in such terrible weather, we mustn’t forget our manners and ignore our guests. This is my father, Hieronymus Hauser. You already met Jakob earlier; behind him is Magdalena and her husband, Simon, and between them, that pretty young lady is Georg’s twin sister, Barbara.”

Hauser bowed politely, then he winked at Barbara. “I can’t say you look very much like your brother, but that isn’t necessarily a disadvantage.”

Jakob Kuisl laughed grimly. “You’re right, Master Hauser. Barbara is more like her mother.”

“Well, when it comes to corpulence, I’m more like my father,” Katharina lamented, rolling her eyes playfully. “I can count myself lucky that Bartl prefers bigger women.” She stretched, rubbing her tired eyes. “Excuse me, but the day has been long, and at the first light of dawn tomorrow we need to go back to preparing for the wedding. I’m afraid we must leave.”

Hauser nodded. “Yes, I think we must. The night watchman is just going by outside along the moat, and I’d like to join him. These autumn nights feel a bit eerie to me. .” He shook himself and turned to Simon. “I’d like to continue our talk sometime, in the light of day. They say you know something about books, and I have some at home that might interest you.”