Wolf pit

A wolf trap is a three to four meters deep, usually lined with stones pitfall for catching wolves.

Fishing method

In the pit, a live bait, such as a sheep, a pig or a goose was brought. The catch pit was covered with straw. By the sounds of animals in the pit wolves were attracted. By 1850, to have been killed near Hohenwart as the last wolves.

Shape and arrangement

The known proofs of image wolf or bear pits are rectangular. This distinguishes them from the Wolf Fang, whose shape is documented as a round. In the corners, mounted stone slabs prevented a caged wolf escaped from the pit. So-called Wolf gardens, as for the Wolf Garten (Erzgebirge ) documents, composed of buildings constructed on the wolf hunting fences.

Stories

Wolfsgruben play a role in various, partly historically documented stories, as well as in the literature. About the wolf pit in Hörsteler forest in Münster is told that a peasant woman fell while picking mushrooms in a wolf pit, and shortly thereafter a wolf jumped into the pit. The farmer's wife, it should be able to calm the wolf until the hunters of the village had killed the wolf. The Wolf of Ansbach, the former faith by a werewolf, was trapped in a well and killed (see picture proof ). Emil of Maple Hills builds in the episode as the Michel feast for the poor was a wolf pit, in which the head of the poorhouse is caught. In the novella The Wolfsgrube from the Old German Decameron, a noble man catches his unfaithful wife with her ​​lover, the priest.

Geography

Wolfsgrube is also available as a place name, for example in the Black Forest Nature Park Central / North, in the Bavarian village of Chieming or a district Wolfsgruben in the central Hessian community Dautphetal. The Toteisloch Wolfsgrube in Fürstenfeldbruck district was established in 2005 as one of the most beautiful geotopes excellent in Bavaria. In Wilgartswiesen district Sudwestpfalz a wolf pit is obtained. Here, the last wolf was killed in 1908.

Castle building

In a figurative sense is referred to below a drawbridge with Wolfsgrube a catch pit.