Classification: Mythical Beasts & Cryptids

Temporal Range: 17th Century

Geographic Range: Ansbach, (then part of the Holy Roman Empire)

Diet: Carnivorous

Horde: Wild Beasts

Bucking against the traditional werewolf tropes is the Ansbach Wolf. Not a typical man-becomes-beast-under-the-full-moon’s-light, this creature was the result of the death of a cruel Bürgermeister, Michael Leicht. When Leicht died, he managed to transfer his soul into the body of a wolf and continued his reign of terror upon the town, this time with much sharper teeth.

The wolf of Ansbach’s unholy attacks on the town resulted in an unknown number of deaths. No official figures have ever been released but we do know that it was eating its prey, making it a monstrous man-eating creature. Eventually, when the townspeople could take it no longer, a hunt was planned.

They managed to trick the wolf into jumping into an open well, where it was captured and eventually killed. The horror did not cease there though and the townspeople became the monsters. Once the wolf was killed, it was dressed in human clothes and they put a mask on its corpse, mimicking the feared Bürgermeister. Then, it was hung from a gibbet for all to see.

The great mystery here isn’t just the idea of a werewolf stalking the town, but the nature of the Burgermeister becoming a wolf through some kind of necromancy. This is one of the first cases of this found by our field agents and we are now desperately on the hunt for more.

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