The boundary between human and other species is particularly hazy in myth. This mysterious, liminal place hasn’t disappeared in the present day. Wolves feature prominently in this border-land with plenty of tales (and tails) of all sorts of human-canine mixtures. Perhaps the most recognizable to modern, western audiences is the werewolf: half-man, half-wolf, transforms during the full moon.
But modern werewolves, in their many variations, come from arguably more diverse origins. Many cultures have their own wolfy shapeshifters, land-spirits, and other, sometimes nameless creatures. Some are malicious and ravenous, some are warriors, some collect gifts to bring to the underworld… and some, incidentally, like to eat fish.
The story of Wulver – benevolent, fish-loving wolf-men comes from the Shetland Islands – a part of Scotland over 100 miles north of the UK. Fishing, of course, is an important part of human life on these islands – and apparently it’s also important to the spirits who live there, too.
According to Shetland Traditional Lore by Jessie Saxby,
“The Wulver was a creature like a man with a wolf’s head. He had short brown hair all over him. His home was a cave dug out of the side of a steep knowe, half-way up a hill. He didn’t molest folk if folk didn’t molest him. He was fond of fishing, and had a small rock in the deep water which is known to this day as the “Wulver’s Stane”. There he would sit fishing sillaks and piltaks for hour after hour.”
Definitely not your traditional “werewolf.” As described by Saxby, Wulver didn’t appear to be shapeshifters; neither human nor wolf, but something in-between, these creatures were content with a quiet life of fishing out in the sea. As for my earlier description of “benevolent,” the wulver were “reported to have frequently left a few fish on the window-sill of some poor body.”
I don’t anticipate the next box-office thriller to feature these mellow wolf creatures, but there’s no reason to let them drift away from our memory. Too often we associate wolves of myth and history with words like “evil,” “voracious,” or “gruesome,” when really, the relationship between wolves and humans is far more complicated (and sometimes, much more charitable). The least we can do is tell their story – and maybe keep an eye out for a wandering wolf spirit. According to the Daily Record in the U.K., “It’s been 100 years since the last sighting.” But if I were poor and hungry in Shetland, I might just leave my window open.
It’s far from the lesson we’ve learned from some modern werewolf tales (where locked doors may not save you from their rage). What’s worse, the same demonization has been given to the less mysterious, standard four-legged variety of Canis lupus that lives and breathes on the North American landscape. Let’s take a lesson in generosity and patience from the Wulver instead, and become better creatures ourselves – for the sake of humans, wolves, and everything in-between.
Sources:
Shetland Traditional Lore, 1932, Jessie Saxby
“Monsters from Scottish Folklore Brought Back to Life,” 2008, Daily Record. http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/uk-world-news/monsters-from-scottish-folklore-brought-back-970798
What a lovely story, and well written post. I have never heard of such beings, and yet can perfectly imagine them in that setting. Often the stories that survive are of intense dramatic encounters between humans and other beings, so the simpler ‘live-and-let-live’ beings often get fewer stories since they are perhaps less dramatic in their encounters. I guess it’s up to us to write more stories incorporating a variety of beings of legend in order that they may continue in our consciousness into the future–including the kind ones who don’t want to kill us!