Andlau - Saints-Pierre-et-Paul

Richardis, wife of Charles III (aka "Charles the Fat") and so "Holy Roman Empress", founded the abbey in Andlau ca 880. Later she lived here (as the abbess). She was known for her piety and so she was canonised, when Pope Leo IX paid a visit to the abbey in 1049.

Another frame of the frieze in Andlau.

A man - a tree - a dog - a wolf with a bird.

A wolf has caught a bird (chicken?), and now the owner of the bird points to the wolf and has send his dog to pursue the thief.

All "objects" differ remarkable in seize. The wolf, holding the bird in his mouth, seems gigantic compared to the dog - and the man, who is a farmer, holding a kind of spade. It could well be, that the carver tried to create a kind "perspectively deepness" in this frame.

The wolf in the very foreground is bigger, than the dog in the middle. The wolf is nearer to the point of view and so looks bigger. The back part this dog is before a tree. The tree is behind the dog. If the tree stands for forest, then the wolf is out of the forest, the dog is just leaving it and the man is still has to cross the forest.

If this would be a film, within the next second, the wolf would have jumped out of the frame, then the dog would reach the edge (and would seem bigger) - and then the man would arrive as well a little later, gasping for air..

This could maybe explain, why the carver created such a gigantic wolf - but it is only a theory. Nothing is written in stone.