crockpotcauldron: (Default)
crockpotcauldron ([personal profile] crockpotcauldron) wrote 2018-12-10 03:07 pm (UTC)

aw, I love wolf strap stories. Let me see what I can scrounge up! This is a pretty good site for them: https://www.pitt.edu/~dash/werewolf.html

Here is one where the werewolf keeps mysteriously bringing mutton home to her husband:
"A married couple in Hessen lived in poverty. To the husband's amazement, the wife nevertheless was able to serve meat for every meal. For a long time she kept it a secret where she got the meat, but finally she promised to reveal it to him, under the condition that he not call out her name as it was happening. Together they went to a field where a herd of sheep was grazing. The woman walked toward the sheep, and as ishe approached them, she threw a ring over herself and instantly turned into a werewolf. She fell upon the sheep, seized one of them, and fled. The man stood there as though petrified. However, when he saw the shepherd and the dogs running after the werewolf, thus endangering his wife, he forgot his promise and called out: "Margaret!" With that the wolf disappeared, and the woman was left standing naked in the field."

And here's one where the werewolf hunts himself a snack and then pretends nothing happened. Looks like it was a popular one, because there are several versions of it. I think this is the one I remembered.
"Three workmen were mowing a meadow. Noon came, but no one had brought them their meal yet, so they agreed to mow one more round and then to lie down beneath a bush until the food arrived. And that is what they did. Two of them fell asleep immediately, because one never sleeps better than when one is tired, and there is no softer bed than one made from flowers and grass.
The third workman, however, tied a wolf strap around his waist and crept up to a herd of horses that was grazing there. The best foal was just right for him. He grabbed it and killed it. The remaining horses and the herder ran off. The other harvesters saw what had happened, but they wisely pretended to be asleep, for they were frightened and horrified.
After the werewolf had satisfied his hunger, he took off the strap, came back, and lay down to rest. Their food soon arrived: a large pot full of porridge and for each man six boiled eggs plus some bread and salt. As the two harvesters were helping themselves with their wooden spoons, the werewolf said, "Earlier I was terribly hungry, but for some reason I don't feel like eating now." The two others said nothing.
The one harvester complained the entire afternoon about cramps and a stomach ache, and often went to the brook to quench his burning thirst. The two others said nothing. That evening, as they were on their way home, he said once again that he had never felt so stuffed, to which one of the harvesters replied that it could happen to anyone.
When they arrived at the town gate, and he was still complaining, the other workman said, "A person who eats an entire foal should not be surprised to feel stuffed and have stomach cramps. To that he replied, "If you had said that earlier, you would not now be walking home on your own legs." He then threw his scythe away, tied the strap around his waist, turned into a wolf, and was never again seen in that place."

I love that kind of story.

I haven't encountered Gabriel-Ernest before, but I'm going to read it now. As for Family Man, I did try to read it a while ago, and I'll give it another shot.

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