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The Werewolf of Jarnitz

A. Haas

In the vicinity of Jarnitz there lived a werewolf who had the ability to transform himself into all kinds of different shapes. This werewolf spent the nights stealing sheep from their enclosures, for in those days the sheep were kept at night in enclosures in the open fields. For several nights in a row the shepherd, armed with a loaded gun, had kept watch for the night robber. He had already hit the werewolf several times, as he had clearly seen, but the bullets seemed to have done him no harm, and he had escaped with his booty every time. Then the shepherd loaded his gun with bullets made of inherited silver, which never fail. Thus this time he would be successful.

Following his custom, the werewolf appeared again that night. But as he was approaching the enclosure, he immediately sensed that this time the shepherd might do him in. Therefore he quickly turned himself into a human, walked up to the shepherd, and said to him in a familiar tone, "You don't have to shoot me dead!" That so unsettled the shepherd that he lowered his gun, which he had been aiming at the intruder.

The werewolf never again dared to steel sheep from the Jarnitz enclosures.

Source: A. Haas, Rügensche Sagen und Märchen (Stettin, 1903), pp. 98-99.
Jarnitz (Germany) is a town on the island of Rügen in the Baltic Sea.