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Photo from journal Eesti Loodus, 3/1968

 

The wolf, chosen as the 2013 animal of the year, is a highly popular creature in folk tales. He is often met in fairy tales, legends and folklore, folklore researcher Marju Kõivupuu writes in journal Loodusesõber.

 

Metsä itti, metsä ätti,
metsä armas halli kuera,
metsä kuldane kuningas,
metsä kardane kasukas!
Ärä sina puudu puikusiie
ärä kisu kitseohlu,
ega ärä laku lambatalle!
Süö sina suosta sambelaida
mädajärvest mätta´aida,
lebäjärvest lehte´eida!
Suod olgu sinu soide´ella,
maad olgu sinu marada!
(Kuusalu parish, 1938.)

 

[The above is an incantation to persuade the wolf to keep away from sheep, goats and other domestic animals and keep to bogs and forests, with the alliterations typical for Estonian folk songs, sayings and chants in  the text: kuldne kuningas, kardane kasukas, suosta sambelaida]

 

In Estonian folk tales the wolf is a silly, easily fooled animal quite as in the tales of Little Red Riding Hood and the Three Little Pigs, known to us already from childhood from the published European fairytale writers’ stories, where one character is the evil but somewhat dumb wolf. In our tales too the wolf is rather stupid. Do you remember how he tried fishing with his tail in a hole in the ice or looked under the mare’s hoof to see the price of the foal? The fairytale wolf is often defeated by the domestic animals that the real wolf slays in nature whenever he gets the chance – sheep, goat and of course man. Incidentally investigators of Estonian animal folk tales have observed that in contrast to religious concepts, no tales have been preserved in the Estonian tale repertoire showing  that people fear wild animals or shows them particular respect. But it is worthwhile to remember that from the narrator’s perspective a fairytale animal represents a particular character type, and features fixed in the tale tradition. To transfer these one-to-one to the living prototypes in nature would be unfair and false.

 

Wolf encounters: bringing luck or unluck
The title of this text is from a childhood game in which you tried to test the opponents daring and fortitude. Two players stood facing each other, one asked the other: „Did you go to the forest“ – „I did“ – Saw the wolf?“ – „I did“ – „Were you scared“ .If the opponent said that he was not you waved your hands in front of his/her face and made ugly sounds. If the opponent did not blink at that and calmly kept his place he was the winner. The loser however was ridiculed as afraid of wolves, “daren’t go into the forest?” In people’s beliefs meeting a wolf in the forest was not always thought to be frightening or a bad omen. In Räpina parish it was thought that meeting a wolf on going fishing meant good fishing luck. In south-eastern Estonia the belief was that if a wolf pack was moving around a village then a good and blessed year could be expected. But from the same area a completely opposite view has been recorded – a wolf pack near the village predicted that food would become more expensive and it would be a bad year as regards money. Generally it has been held as a bad foreboding to hear unusually much wolf howling – from this outbreaks of war, bad luck, harvest and domestic animal failures, pests and illnesses were predicted.

Doing field work in Võrumaa I managed to record some tales as late as in the 1990s from elderly, then 70-80-year old people, which the teller according to their own words claimed had really happened to their own parents or grandparents: it is said that the wolf will lift its leg on a human who plays dead. And a person on whom a wolf has urinated loses his memory and can’t find the way home and stays wandering in the forest for some time. Folklore tales are recorded of people who in meeting a wolf have acted dead by lying on the ground, to divert the wolf’s attention away from themselves.

If a pregnant woman was frightened by a wolf, the child could develop a „wolf disease“ or „wolf sign“ – the latter was a dark birth mark, sometimes also hair-covered, that appeared on the child where the mother had put her hand when she was scared. If the infant was restless, slept badly or cried in a way that seemed like a wolf’s howl, the child was believed to have a wolf disease which could be made harmless or cured with magic treatments. The child was held in smoke from wolf hairs, it was given water from wolf tracks to drink or was fed liquid from boiled wolf meat – the defect must be sent back to where it came from. A child’s cleft palate – “wolf throat” – was thought to be caused by the mother having been scared by a wolf or having been present during her pregnancy when hunters skinned a wolf.

 

Wolf slays ghosts
In Estonian folklore there are numerous legends and tales where the wolf slays ghosts. In one popular folk tale the ghost sits high up somewhere, in the top of a tree or on the roof of a barn, and teases the wolf: „See, doggie, one leg, see, doggie, the other leg“. If a chance passer-by pushes the ghost down, the wolves kill it. From the killed ghost the winding clothes remain, or a mysterious blue smoke, as is usual with supernatural beings. It is also said that a ghost will not find peace until the wolves have killed or eaten it three or nine times. At the same time the wolf has a notable role in folk didactics –even in admonishing adults to behave politely and respectably the wolf could be used. Who crept out through the smoke-vent instead of going out through the door would be eaten by a wolf

 

Who created the wolf?
According to the dualistic creation tales with international motifs the wolf is created by God or the Devil. Dependent on the creator, the wolf in the folk narratives and beliefs is represented as good or evil. The wolf created by the Devil has a heart of stone or an oak stump; because of that stones must not be thrown at a wolf nor must it be hit with an oak cane – by throwing a stone and hitting with an oak cane the wolf gains heart and power, and will attack the opponent even more violently. The wolf has also been thought to be the Devil’s horse, and when the Devil himself rides the wolf it cannot kill domestic animals.

But God is said to have created the wolf for orphan children – if there were no wolves poor children would starve, because nobody would be needed to mind the herd. The shepherd child and dog however had to be alert and attentive, and take note of the wolf before the wolf saw them. This belief was also held for watchdogs – if the wolf sees the dog first then the dog will be as bewitched, and cannot even make a sound to protect itself.

If the shepherd boy sees the wolf before the wolf sees him, the wolf’s jaws stay locked and it cannot do any harm, but if the wolf sees the shepherd first, its jaws will not be locked and it can kill a sheep. The shepherd’s voice will be gone for several days. When somebody had lost his voice with cold in winter it was said: "You have seen a wolf, haven’t you.” (Helme parish, 1890.)

The full article was published in journal Loodusesõber in the February issue 2013.