Extra Credit Reading Notes: Werewolf Legends from Germany

This reading is to help me find more stories for my project. I'm currently searching for a story for the Shrieking Shack, which will involve Remus Lupin telling a frame tale about one of his werewolf transformations.

The Morbach Monster story is a good candidate for a frame tale. It mentions that in a particular town, a werewolf often visits if a specific candle in a shrine goes out. It also says that security policemen joked about a werewolf coming because the candle had gone out. I'm not sure exactly how I would use these aspects of the story, but they feel like good details that could enhance whatever I write. One other thing I found potentially useful in the story was that alarms went off and a policeman "saw a huge 'dog-like' animal stand up on its back legs, look at him, and jump over the 7 1/2 foot chain-link fence."

My idea with this one is to have Remus have gone out of control on his transformation for the month, and his friends are having trouble containing him. He ends up in the town but the Marauders pull him back and help to tame him before he can get to anyone.

The Werewolf of Vietlübbe would be a great story to use for having Remus' friends snap him out of his transformation stupor. In this story, a farmer comes across a werewolf. The werewolf is actually the farmer's neighbor, and the farmer realizes this. He tries to snap his neighbor out of an attack on a horse by calling out his name and humanizing him:

"'Irnst Jacobs, is that you? Let me say something to you. Irnst Jacobs, listen to me, Irnst Jacobs!' And as he spoke the name the third time, his neighbor stood there before him, begging him to high heaven not to reveal him."

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Bibliography: Werewolf Legends from Germany, translated and edited by D. L. Ashliman

Image Information: Werewolf drawing for the story "The Werewolf Howls" from Weird Tales magazine. Image from Wikimedia Commons.