Physicians and barber-surgeons declared that these were the teeth of a huge wolf. “Robbers,” said they, “had doubtless come up, after the wolf, and had stripped the victims.”
Despite all search, no man could ever discover who were the robbers. Soon the wolf was forgotten.
Several townsmen of note, who had proudly set forth on their way without an escort, disappeared without any one knowing what had become of them, save that at times some country fellow, going out in the morning to plough the earth, found wolf tracks in his field, while his dog, digging in the furrows with his paws, brought to light a poor dead corpse carrying the marks of the wolf’s teeth on the nape or under the ear, and oftentimes on the leg, too, and always behind. And always the neckbone and legbone were broken.
The peasant, affrighted, would go off at once to give information to the bailiff, who would come with the clerk of the court, two aldermen, and two surgeons to the place where lay the body of the murdered man. Having visited it diligently and carefully, having sometimes when the face was not eaten by worms recognized its quality, even its name and lineage, they were nevertheless always astonied that the wolf, a beast that kills for hunger, should not have carried off some part of the dead man.
And the folk of Damme were sore terrified, and no woman dared to go out by night without an escort.
Now it came that several valiant soldiers were sent out to look for the wolf, with orders to hunt for it day and night in the dunes, along by the sea.
They were then near Heyst, among the great dunes. Night had come. One of them, confident in his strength, wanted to leave them to go alone on the hunt, armed with a musket. The others allowed him, certain that, valiant and armed as he was, he would kill the wolf if he dared to show himself.
Their comrade having gone, they lit a fire and played at dice while drinking brandy out of their flasks.
And from time to time they called out:
“Now, then, comrade, come back; the wolf is afraid; come and drink!”