WOLF MYTHOLOGY

 

WOLF has taken on a variety of guises in the folklore of the North, the most common being that of Ultimate Predator!

 

 

But there are a few exceptions.

 

Here is a collection of folktales, myths and legends which describe the Wolf totem's many aspects;  ravening beast, compassionate mother, scapegoat and rube, werewolf, skin-changer and shape-shifter,  romantic icon of the wilderness, powerful hunting totem.

 

 

 

 

Wolf Mask, Kwakwaka’wakw, Artist unknown, c.1860

 

 

Howl

 

It was wild untamed music, and it

echoed from the hillsides

and filled the valleys. It sent

a queer shivering feeling along my

spine. It was not a feeling of fear, you understand, but a sort of

tingling, as if there was hair on my back

and it was hackling.

                                         Alda Orton,  Alaskan trapper

 

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Remember Little Red Riding Hood?  The following Italian folktale is similar in several respects: the little girl carries food as a gift, there is a ritualized question and answer sequence, and the victim is devoured in the end.

(This story also contains elements of the old campfire favorite:  The Man with the Golden Arm).

 

Uncle Wolf

 

There was once a greedy little girl. One day the school mistress said to the children, “If you are good and finish your knitting, I will give you pancakes.”

    But the little girl didn’t know how to knit and asked for permission to go to the privy. There she sat down and fell asleep. When she came back into school, the other children had eaten all the pancakes. She went home crying and told her mother.    

    “Be a good little girl, my poor dear,” said her mother. “I’ll make pancakes for you.” But her mother was so poor she didn’t even have a skillet. “Go to Uncle Wolf’s house and ask him to lend us his skillet.”

   

The little girl went to Uncle Wolf’s house and knocked. Knock, knock.

    “Who is it?”

    “It’s me!”

    “For years and months, no one has knocked at this door! What do you want?”

    “Mamma sent me to ask if you’ll lend us your skillet to make pancakes.”

    “Just a minute, let me put my shirt on.”

    Knock, knock.

    “Just a minute, let me put on my drawers.”

    Knock, knock.

    “Just a minute, let me put on my pants.”

    Knock, knock.

    “Just a minute, let me put on my overcoat.”

Finally, Uncle Wolf opened the door and gave her the skillet. “I’ll lend it to you, but tell Mamma to return it full of pancakes, together with a round loaf of bread and a good bottle of wine.”

    “Yes, yes, I’ll bring you everything.”

 

When she got home, her mother made her a whole stack of pancakes, and also a whole stack for Uncle Wolf.

    Before nightfall she said to the child, “Take the pancakes to Uncle Wolf along with this loaf of bread and bottle of wine.”

    Along the way the child, glutton that she was, began sniffing the pancakes. “Oh, what a wonderful smell! I think I’ll try just one.” But then she had to eat another, and another, and another, and soon the pancakes were all gone and followed by the bread, down to the last crumb, and the wine, down to the last drop.

 

Now to fill up the skillet she raked up some donkey manure from off the road. She refilled the bottle with dirty water. To replace the bread, she made a round loaf out of the lime she got from a stonemason working along the way. When she reached Uncle Wolf’s, she gave him this ugly mess.

    Uncle Wolf bit into a pancake “Uck! This is donkey dung!” He uncorked the wine at once to wash the bad taste out of his mouth. “Uck! This is dirty water!” He bit off a piece of bread. “Uck! This is lime!” He glared at the child and said, “Tonight I’m coming to eat you!”

 

The child ran home to her mother. “Tonight Uncle Wolf is coming to eat me!”

    Her mother went around closing doors and windows and stopping up all the holes in the house, so Uncle Wolf couldn’t get in; but she forgot to stop up the chimney.

    When it was night and the child was already in bed, Uncle Wolf’s voice was heard howling outside the house. “I’m going to eat you now. I’m right outside!” Then a footstep was heard on the roof. “I’m going to eat you now! I’m on the roof!”

    Then a clatter was heard in the chimney. “I’m going to eat you now. I’m in the chimney!”

    “Mamma, Mamma!  The wolf is here!”

    “Hide under the covers!”

    “I’m going to eat you now. I’m on the hearth!”

    Shaking like a leaf, the child curled up as small as possible in a corner of the bed.

    “I’m going to eat you now. I’m in the room!”

    The little girl held her breath.

    “I’m going to eat you now. I’m in the bed!  And here I go!” And he gobbled her up.

 

So Uncle Wolf always eats greedy little girls.

 

(From Romagna)

“Italian Folktales”  by Italo Calvino,   Harcourt Books

 

 

 

Anthony Crane collection, UK/ Bridgeman Art Library

 

 

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In the following  Mongolian folktale, Wolf takes on the role of a rube or the butt of a joke, a guise which is often encountered in the folklore of Scandinavia as well.

 

The Wolf, The Fox and the Bag of Butter

 

One day, as a Wolf and a Fox were hunting together, they came upon a bag full of butter that some human had dropped by the side of the road.

     The two animals had agreed to divide the butter equally between them, when suddenly the Fox said, “It’s not a good idea to eat the butter here by the road. Someone might come along and see us.  Let’s take it up to the top of the mountain and eat it there.”

 

     So the Wolf and the Fox carried the bag of butter up to the top of a high mountain. Just as the Wolf prepared to start eating his share, the Fox said, “It’s not a good idea to share this butter. Only one of us should eat it.”

     The Wolf asked, “Well then, which of us should get to eat it?”

     “The one of us who is the oldest”, answered the Fox. “How old are you?”

     The Wolf, who wanted that butter all to himself very much, decided to try and trick the Fox. He said to her:

     “When I was little the Great Mountain Sumber was just a small mound and the Big Lake Hovsgol was a tiny puddle.”

     On hearing this , the Fox burst into tears. The Wolf, surprised, thought to himself:

     “Oh, poor sensitive Fox! But it doesn’t matter to me how much you cry because now all the butter will be mine!”

 

     Still, curious to know why the Fox was so stricken with grief, the Wolf asked her, “Why are you so sad?”  

Whereupon the Fox, wiping her tears, said in a choked voice:

     I have three cubs. My youngest is exactly the same age as you. When you mentioned your childhood, I began to think of my youngest cub. I miss him so much that I began to cry!”

     Her story saddened the Wolf and suddenly he was ashamed of himself for his trickery. He gave the bag of butter to the Fox and went slinking off to his lair, his mouth still watering over the lost delicacy.

     When the Wolf was out of sight, the sly Fox began to eat the butter all by herself, chuckling between each delicious mouthful.

 

From Mongolian Folktales by Hilary Roe Metternich

Avery Press, Boulder, Colorado, 1996

 

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From Scandinavian mythology comes the legend of the Fenris Wolf, a gigantic god-like, ravenous Predator, so powerful he had to be restrained by magical means, or else devour the whole world!

 

The Fenris Wolf

The Norse god/hero Loke came from the world of Giants, and the Giants were enemies of the gods. The gods tried to compete with Loke, but they never tried to kill him. Loke had many offspring, most of them with women giants. And except for the horse of Odin, the eight-legged horse, called Sleipner, they were all monsters.

The best known of Loke’s offspring is the Midgard snake, a snake bigger than a sea serpent. At first it was a little worm, but the gods threw it into the ocean, and it grew and grew, until it was so big, that it surrounded the whole world of gods and men. It is lying around the world and locking up gods and men, biting itself in its tail.

But worst of all of Loke’s offspring is the Fenris Wolf. At first of course he was a lovely little wolf cub, and the gods played games with him, especially the god Tyr. (He is a horned god, and his name means Bull. A lot of villages in Denmark still bear his name. And the day Tuesday has its name from him).

But the wolf cub Fenris grew and grew, until he was so big, that he was able to swallow the world of gods and men.

Of course the gods were very frightened, so they did exactly what we should have done. They made a chain to hold the wolf. The gods went with the chain to the wolf and asked "Do you want to play a game?"

“Oh, yes”, the wolf said. “What is the idea?”

“We simply put the chain around your neck, and you must try to break it”.

“Okay”, the wolf said, and the gods placed the chain around its neck.

Of course it was broken in a second.

The gods now were trembling with fear, and although they didn't know the word measurable, because the word is connected with our modern world of science, they went round their world and collected all measurable materials and melted them into a new chain. Everything, which you can measure and weigh, was in that chain.

With this second chain they went forward to the Fenris Wolf. It took days to drag the heavy chain, and far away the gods could hear the Fenris Wolf laughing and shouting,      “ If once you reach me, it will be an honor to break that chain.”

After some days the gods succeeded and placed the chain around the neck of the wolf, but again the chain was broken in a second.

Now a cold sweat of fear hit the gods, and they went to a strange place, strange for gods. They went to the dwarfs in the hills.

So the gods asked the dwarfs to make a third chain, and they got the strangest chain you ever heard of.

It was soft and flabby and made from such strange raw materials as women’s beard, birds’ spittle, the breath of fish and the sound of cats’ paws. With this odd chain the gods for the third time went to the Fenris Wolf.

But this time he was not ready to play the game.

“I think there is magic power in this chain”, the Fenris Wolf said.

“But on one condition you can put it around my neck. Two of you gods must put an arm into my mouth at the same time”. As a matter of fact the wolf did not have a mouth, but a gap as big as an opening from a firth to the North Sea.

The gods didn't like the proposal. They looked at each other, and one could see from their faces, that they didn't want to work on a group project of this type!

But then the god Tyr, who had played with the wolf when it was a cub, stepped forward and promised to put his arm into the mouth of the monster.

And so he did, while the gods placed the chain made from women’s beard, birds’ spittle, the breath of fish and the sound of cats’ paws, around the wolf's neck.

Now the old Danish mythology says very beautifully: “The chain was not broken”.    That gave the gods a big laugh.

But not Tyr. He was an arm shorter.

written by Poul Eric, 1977

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Warrior Songs

 

A wolf

I considered myself

 

But the owls are hooting

and the night

I fear.

             a Sioux warrior song collected by Francis Denmore

 

 

 

At daybreak I roam

ready to tear up the world

I roam

 

At daybreak I roam

shivers coming up my spine

I roam

 

At daybreak I roam

awake to who is following

I roam

 

At daybreak I roam

eyes in the back of my head

I roam

                  Santee Sioux song sung by Weasel Bear

                   Translated by Jim Heynen

 

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WEREWOLVES, SHAPE-SHIFTERS and SKIN-CHANGERS

 

 

 

 

 

Werewolf Characteristics and Protections

 

In every country, there are stories about skin-changers and shape-shifters; humans who change into animal form under special magical circumstances. Wolf skin-changers are called werewolves.

 

As the moon got larger each month, Sicilian werewolves grew restless. Slowly, slowly they changed; fist groveling in the mud with sunken, glazed eyes, then quivering, and finally leaping up howling. Luckily Sicilian werewolves howled so often that they warned everyone they were around.

    They were also afraid of light, making them fairly easy to control. Sometimes, too, a Sicilian werewolf even warned his friends and family that he was due to change so they could protect themselves. He would warn them not to open their doors if he called to them, unless he called three times; after that, it would be safe to let him in, for he would have lost his power.

 

In Ireland or Scotland, you could sometimes hold a werewolf off by protecting yourself with a branch of a yew tree, a piece of mistletoe, or an ash twig. You could also get yourself on the other side of a running stream for it was unlikely that these werewolves could cross water.

 

In Scotland, you could kill a werewolf with a silver bullet, a bullet blessed by a clergyman, or a silver dagger.

 

In Serbia, werewolves held yearly meetings and hung their skins up on nearby trees. If the villagers could only discover where they met, all they had to do was sneak up, steal the skins, and burn them. Then all the werewolves would have to return to human shape.

In many cultures, burning or otherwise destroying  the wolfskin would kill the werewolf.

 

After putting on his wolfskin, a werewolf had to chant a special incantation to complete his transformation. Here is a chant collected by W.R. Ralston from Songs of the Russian People:

 

“In the open sea, on the island Buyan, in the

open plain, shines the moon upon an aspen stump,

into the green wood, into the spreading vale.

Around the stump goes a shaggy wolf; under his

teeth are all the horned cattle; but into the

wood the wolf goes not; into the vale the wolf

does not roam. Moon! Moon! Golden horns!

Melt the bullet, blunt the knife, rot the cudgel,

strike fear into man, beast, and reptile,

so that they may not seize the grey wolf, nor tear

from him his warm hide. My word is firm,

firmer than sleep or the strength of bones.”

 

Shape-shifter changing his form

 

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The Sea Wolf     a Haida story from British Columbia

 

One time a man found two young wolf pups on the baech. He took them home and raised them and one day after they were grown the man saw them go out into the ocean and kill a whale. They brought the whale back to shore so the man could eat. Everyday it went like this. The wolves would go out and hunt whales and bring back the meat.

    Soon there was so much meat lying around on the beach it was going bad. When the Great Above Person saw this he made a storm and brought down a fog and the wolves could not find any whales to kill. The waves were so high the wolves could not even find their way back. They had to stay out there. Those wolves became sea wolves. Whale hunters.

 

Crawling Wolf Dancer , print by Joe David                    From Looking at Indian Art by Hilary Stewart

 

 

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Here’s a Wild West yarn about the real-life 19^th century American trapper Jim Bridger:

 

“They tell a story about Jim Bridger, the mountain man, who was setting traps along a creek in the Bitterroot Mountains in 1829 when he was jumped by wolves. Bridger ran for the nearest tree and was able to climb out of reach before the wolves could get to him.

    After milling around for a while, all the wolves but one, who was left behind to guard, departed. A half hour later the other wolves returned with a beaver whom they set to chewing the tree down.”

                         From Of Wolves and Men , by Barry Lopez

 

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Aesop wrote many fables about wolves. Here are a couple:

 

The Wolf and the Crane

 

One day a wolf got a bone stuck in his throat. He was unable to dislodge it and so he went around asking for someone to pull it out. Finally a crane offered to help. He stuck his long bill down the wolf’s throat and extracted the bone. When the crane asked for a reward, the wolf said, “You are lucky I didn’t bite your head off. That’s all the reward you get.”

 

 

The Shepherd Boy and the Wolf  or  The Boy Who Cried Wolf

 

A shepherd boy was watching his flock near the village and became bored. He thought it would be great fun to pretend that a Wolf was attacking the sheep, so he cried out Wolf! Wolf! and the villagers came running. He played the trick again. And then again. Each time the villagers came, only to be fooled. Then one day a Wolf did come and the boy cried out Wolf! Wolf! But no one answered his pleas for help. They naturally thought he was up to his old tricks again, and that was the end of the boy who cried Wolf….

 

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Worldwide, there are folktales of infants abandoned in the wilderness by their human parents, then adopted and raised by compassionate wolf mothers. The story of Romulus and Remus, the original founders of Rome, falls into this genre. Here is a wolf rescue story from Ireland:

 

A Compassionate Wolf Mother

 

Saint Ailbe, a sixth Century Irish bishop, was born the son of a slave girl. Shortly after his birth he was taken out and deposited in the wilderness by order of his mother’s owner. A wolf took compassion on him and cared for him until a huntsman found him. Years later, when he was the Bishop of Emily, a gray wolf pursued by hunters ran into his house and laid her head on his lap.

    “I will protect thee, old mother,” said the bishop, drawing his cloak around the old wolf. “When I was little and young and feeble, thou didst nourish and cherish and protect me, and now that thou art old and gray and weak, shall I not render the same love and care for thee? None shall injure thee. Come every day with thy little ones to my table, and thou and thine shall share my crusts.”

 

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How the Wolf got its Gray Coat      a Native American wolf story

 

At one point in time, all wolves were white. Every-single-one. There wasn't another color. One wolf was named Tala (Native-American for wolf). Tala hated the color white and decided to be another color. She went to the nearby Native American village, snuck in quietly, and stole a pot of red paint. When she found an open area, she dumped it on the ground to make a puddle. She rolled in the puddle until she was red all over. Then she went to the river to look at her reflection and see her knew color.

When she got to the river, she frowned. "I look horrible in this color," she said. "Red is not my color." So she went back to the Native American village and stole a pot of yellow paint. Tala went back to the open area and dumped the pot on the ground and rolled until she was yellow all over. She went to the river to see the results. She frowned. "I look like a dead leaf in autumn," she grumbled. "Yellow is not my color." Again she went to Native American village a stole a pot of green paint. Then she walked to the open area, dumped the pot of paint on the ground and rolled in it. Again, Tala went to the river. Her reflection did not make her happy.

"I look like a rotting fruit," Tala complained. "Green is not my color."

She went back to the Native American village and stole a pot of blue paint. She dumped it on the open area and rolled in it until every inch of her fur was covered in blue paint. She went to the river and sat down shaking her head.

"I look like a night sky," she said. Then she asked the river, " River, will you wash the paint off my fur?"

"Certainly", said the river.

Tala jumped into the river and rolled until she was clean. "Thank you, River," she said.

The River chuckled. "But you did not get all the paint off. All those colors mixed to make gray. Your whole back is covered in gray paint."

"Oh, well," Tala grumbled. "It's better than white."

By The Turner Family      from the website Wolf Country    www.wolfcountry.net

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