Munich's Museum of Hunting and Fishing (Deutsches Jagd und Fischereimuseum) houses hunting artefacts. There are vintage knives, drinking horns, paintings, and taxidermy galore. Cool stuff, sure, but at first glance the museum is profoundly ... meh. Other museums tackle the topic in more extensive, confronting, beautiful ways. That said, Deutsches Jagd und Fischereimuseum is worth a visit for two reasons.

The museum is on consecrated ground (top 2 images), namely a 13th century church in disrepair called Augustinerkirche. Taxidermy mounts replace stations of the cross, an Irish Elk skeleton stands in place of a crucifix in the nave, and a collection of the Snow Queen's finest hunting sleds forms the the altar.

Even better than the location is something that makes the Munich museum truly unique: wolpertingers (images 5-7). The size of a rabbit, often winged, antlered, sometimes fanged and reptilian, always dangerous: wolpertingers are rabbit-like animals from Bavarian folklore. Jackalopes are arguably North American wolpertines, though much less terrible than the Bavarian varieties.

The first wolpertinger encounter is in a diorama nestled between the native bird and mammals sections of the museums. Later on, wolpertines get their own room - oddly adjacent to a depiction of prehistoric humans. The exhibition also includes prints  illustrating the anatomy and dissection of a wolpertine. This bottom photo shows two animals in the act of creating a wolpertinger!

There was also a temporary exhibit of human hunting archetypes. The focus was on Vikings, culminating in an entire wall about Thor with Marvel comics and movie posters from the latest film. Asterix also makes an appearance. It reminded me of a school fair.