Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-c4f8m Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-17T07:21:35.406Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Grey Wolf*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Colin Matheson
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In a previous paper (1) an attempt was made to describe the inter-relations of man and bear in Europe from early times to the present day. In many ways the influence of the wolf has been more important than that of the bear on the habits and thoughts of European man. Occasionally it has figured in a favourable light, as in the case of the she-wolf credited with suckling the twin founders of the City on Seven Hills (though even here the double meaning of lupa—applied in a transferative sense to ladies whose character would not bear close investigation—has led some authors to a conjecture which it might not have been politic to mention to any patriotic inhabitant of the grandeur that was Rome). But in general, whether in Italy or elsewhere, no animal has been so hated and feared. Among the ancient Greeks in the south—whose Lyceum at Athens and sanctuary of Apollo Lukeios at Sicyon may have originated in efforts to propitiate the wolves-as among the Letts of the north who, perhaps as late as the 17th century, sacrificed a goat each December to the wolves so that their other livestock might be spared(2) ; from Scotland where priests offered the prayer, quoted by Fittis (3) from the old Litany of Dunkeld, for deliverance ‘from robbers and caterans, from wolves and all wild beasts’, to Russia where peasants pronounced a spell on St. George's Day with the recurring plea, ‘God grant the wolf may not take our cattle‘ (4); the wolf was the great destroyer, the despoiler of flocks and herds and man's chief enemy in the animal world.

Type
Research Article
Information
Antiquity , Volume 17 , Issue 65 , March 1943 , pp. 11 - 18
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 1943

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Authorities

1 ‘Man and Bear in Europe’, ANTIQUITY, 1942, xvi, 151-9Google Scholar.

2 Frazer, , The Golden Bough : Spirits of the Corn and the Wild, 11, 283-4Google Scholar.

3 Sports and Pastimes of Scotland, 1891, p. 39 Google Scholar.

4 The Golden Bough : Magic Art, 11, 334 Google Scholar.

5 Lydekker, , Royal Natural History (1893-1894), 1, 498 Google Scholar.

6 ‘La Disparition des Loups dans l'Europe Occidentale’, Bull. Soc. Zoologique de Génève, 1938, III. 37–41 Google Scholar

7 Feuillée-Billot, , ‘Les Derniers Loups de France’, La Nature, 1932, II, 551-6Google Scholar.

8 See note 6.

9 See note 7.

10 Rollinat, , ‘Le Loup Commun (Canis lupus Linné)’, etc. Revue d'Histoire Naturelle, 1929, X, 105-29; 209-38; 289–308 Google Scholar.

11 Charlesworth's Magazine of Natural History, 1838, pp. 122-7Google Scholar.

12 Rollinat, op. cit. pp. 105-29.

13 Bulletin de la Société Zoologique de Génève , loc. cit.

14 Fittis, op. cit. p. 40.

15 Millais, , Mammals of Great Britain and Ireland, 1904, 1, 193 Google Scholar.

16 op. cit. pp. 209-38.

17 ‘Les Loups Enragés dans les Alpes-Maritimes’, Annals. Soc. Linnéenne de Lyon, 1918, LXV, 25–30 Google Scholar.

18 Annales Cambriae—Rolls series, i860, pp. 50-1.

19 Rollinat, op. cit.

20 Holmes, , Louis Pasteur [1925], p. 219 Google Scholar.

21 Goldman, , Journ. of Mammalogy, 1925, p. 30; 1930, p. 329 Google Scholar.

22 Henderson and Craig, Economie Mammalogy, 1932, p. 98 Google Scholar.

23 British Animals Extinct within Historic Times, 1880.

24 Nature, 9 December 1933, p. 906.

26 Fittis, op. cit.

26 The Influence of Man on Animal Life in Scotland, 1920.

27 Changes in the Fauna of Wales within Historic Times (National Museum of Wales publication), 1932.

28 See for example Ash, The Practical Dog Book, 1931, pp. 33-7Google Scholar.

29 Workman, , ‘The Wolf (Canis lupus) in Ireland’, Irish Naturalists’ Journal, 1926, 1, 43-4Google Scholar.

30 See Millais, op cit. pp. 196-7.

31 Bulletin de la Société Zoologique de Génève, loc. cit.

32 Feuillée-Billot, op. cit.

33 Rollinat, op. cit. pp. 289–308.

34 Bull. Soc. Fribourgeoise des Sei. Nat., Compte-Rendu 1893–1897, VII, 60–82; citing SchinzGoogle Scholar.

35 Bull, de la Soc. Zoologique de Génève, loc. cit.

36 Barclay, , Big Game Shooting Records, 1932, p. 164 Google Scholar.

37 Weissenborn, , Charlesworth's Mag. Nat. Hist., 1838, pp. 122-7Google Scholar.

38 Bull. Soc. Zoologique de Génève, loc. cit.

39 Weissenborn, loc. cit.

40 Annales Zoologici Musei Polonici, 1924, pp. 106-7.

41 Journal of Mammalogy, 1930, p. 508 Google ScholarPubMed.

42 Belden, , Fur Trade of America, 1917, p. 444 Google Scholar.

43 Feuillée-Billot, op. cit.