Oliver Pötzsch - The Werewolf of Bamberg

Was it possible? After all these years?

After the apothecary’s wife, Adelheid Rinswieser, had disappeared without a trace, Vasold had struggled for a long time before deciding to pay this nocturnal visit. Secretly, the patrician hoped his friend would try to calm him down, laugh at his fears, and together they would raise a toast to old times. Vasold feared nothing more than the idea that his friend might have come to the same conclusion.

But he suspected he had.

And what will we do then? Lock the doors and hope that the shadow passes? Pray? Go on a pilgrimage? Plead with God for forgiveness?

“What’s the matter, Hans?”

Vasold’s loyal servant had suddenly stopped in his tracks so that the patrician, lost in his thoughts, almost bumped into him. The huge man was standing there like a monument of stone, his hand on the loaded pistol still hanging from his belt.

“I don’t know, master. I thought I heard something,” he murmured.

“And what did you hear?”

“A. . well, a growling and scraping sound. It came from the entrance to the house here.”

Trembling, Hans pointed to a shadowy niche on their left, and Vasold felt as if a fist were slowly squeezing his heart.

The house was one of the many dilapidated buildings that had been standing vacant for decades. Ivy had wound its way up the unplastered walls, the windows were boarded up, and rotten beams of wood and clumps of rock lay in front of the wide door. Only now did the old patrician notice that the once-splendid portal, with its inlaid wood and carvings, was open a crack. Inside, a form, even darker than the darkness, was undulating back and forth. Somewhere a stone fell, crashing to the ground, and now Vasold heard it, too-a long, sustained growl, deep and evil.

“There it is again, master,” Hans whispered.

Thadäus Vasold had never before seen the big man scared, not even when he’d confronted two marauding mercenaries in the Bamberg Forest-but now he was shaking all over.

“This werewolf. .,” he groaned. “People say they love fresh blood, and they slowly tear their victims apart, first the arms, then the legs, then-”

“Damn it, Hans, I didn’t bring you along to tell me all these foolish horror stories,” Vasold replied hesitantly. “Go take a look and see who or what it is.”

“As you say, master.” The large man pulled himself together, drew the loaded wheel-lock pistol, and carefully approached the doorway. He spoke a silent prayer.

At that moment, the door opened with a loud grating sound and a figure appeared, so horrible that Hans uttered a cry, dropped his weapon, and fell to his knees.

The creature looked like a wolf as it slunk toward them on its hind legs. In the darkness of night, it appeared taller than a man, and it had black fur and long fangs that flashed in the light of the lantern that Hans had dropped on the ground.

“God in heaven, help us!”

The voice of the huge man was suddenly high-pitched and whining, like that of a girl. With a final horrified scream, he scrambled to his feet and raced away down the street, disappearing into the darkness.

Thadäus Vasold wanted to call after his servant, but his voice failed him. Terrified, he stared at the creature that was approaching him with its long claws. The lantern on the ground flickered slightly, casting dancing shadows on the wall, making the creature look larger and larger the closer it came.

“Please. .,” Vasold croaked, paralyzed with fear, clutching his walking stick and watching wide-eyed as death incarnate approached. “Please, spare me. By God, I’ll give you anything you want. I’ll. .”

Only then did the old patrician realize what he’d completely overlooked in his anxiety.

He knew this house, and he knew also who had once lived there.

I was right. But why-

Vasold’s thoughts scattered like snowflakes in a storm as the creature pounced on him with a contented snarl.

In the distance, the servant’s shrill cries for help rang out, but the councilor couldn’t hear them anymore.

THE BAMBERG CITY COUNCIL CHAMBER, MORNING, OCTOBER 28, 1668 AD

Gentlemen! Silence, please! Silence!”

Simon sat on a hard wooden chair at one corner of the huge council table, listening and watching attentively as some of the most venerable citizens of the city fought with one another like street urchins. The meeting had started just a little over half an hour ago, but tempers were already at the boiling point. Men in lavish patrician garb shouted at one another, some were about to come to blows, and yet others were just sitting quietly at the table shaking their heads, as if they couldn’t understand the atrocious spectacle. Even Suffragan Bishop Sebastian Harsee, the chairman of the hastily convoked council, could think of nothing better to do than pound his little gavel on the table again and again while casting furious glances around at the group.

“Quiet!” he kept shouting. “Quiet! Is this the way distinguished citizens of our city behave? Once more, quiet , or I’ll have the room cleared!”

Simon and Samuel glanced at one another peevishly. At an ungodly hour of the morning, a messenger with a look of annoyance on his face had pounded on the door of the Bamberg hangman’s house to take Simon first to the castle complex and then, with Samuel, to the city councilors’ offices. They’d walked past the cathedral and then toward city hall and into the council room, where the suffragan bishop had unexpectedly scheduled the first meeting of the so-called Werewolf Commission immediately after Sunday-morning mass. In addition to Simon and Samuel, a half dozen city councilmen were present, as well as a scholar from the Jesuit seminary in the nearby church, two doctors of law, the bishop’s chancellor, and even the dean of the cathedral himself, who was attracting attention with his loud prayers and laments.

The occasion was indeed serious. The night before, the Bamberg werewolf had apparently struck again, and his victim was none other than the venerable patrician Thadäus Vasold-at the age of nearly eighty, the oldest member of the council. Vasold’s servant had seen the monster with his own eyes, though there was not a trace left of the councilman himself. The growing fear of the citizenry, as well as that of the scholars in the council chamber, had soon led to a great commotion in the room.

“And I’m telling you,” insisted one of the councilmen, a gaunt, elderly man wearing an old-fashioned ruff collar, “it’s time for us to shut the town gates. This werewolf is prowling around just outside the walls. Two charcoal burners saw him in the forest just yesterday. And he can come and go in our city as he pleases.”

“And what good is that going to do?” snarled another patrician with fat, drooping cheeks. “Do you know what will happen to our businesses if we don’t allow anyone into town? Anyway, the gates were closed last night, and the beast still managed to get old Thadäus.”

“Let’s not forget, the monster has magical powers,” added one of the jurists in a solemn voice. He cleared his throat and started reading from a large book lying in front of him. “According to Formicarius , which is considered the authoritative work in the field, by the Dominican scholar Johannes Nider, werewolves can assume any shape, animal or human. Who knows?” He paused theatrically and looked around the table. “Perhaps the werewolf is sitting right here in the room with us.”

Loud shouting broke out again, and two patricians were about to pounce on the scholar.

“One last time, silence! For God’s sake, silence!”

The suffragan bishop pounded the table with his gavel again, to no effect. Harsee looked pale and unkempt, and Simon thought he could detect a nervous twitch around his mouth. Nevertheless, his eyes still glared out from beneath his monk’s tonsure with the same evil intensity as when Simon had met him the first time in the palace garden.