In many parts of the world, the wolf is primarily associated with harvest and fertility as much as it is with strength and warriors. The myths and folklore show the wolf to be a positive force of nature and more of a familial being. One that is a protector of the people, helping lost people get home or taking in and raising abandoned children. All so unlike the modern tales that portray the wolf as a villain.

The wolf features greatly in stories from the different North American Indian tribes – such as The Tale of the Two Wolves from the Cherokee.

There are many more myths and folktales of wolves as well than what I have here, and I hope to add more as I pick up more.

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Roman Mythology

The famous story of Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome. Their great uncle Amulius had ordered the twin brothers to be killed, however, the servant with the orders relented. The twins were placed in a cradle on the bank of the Tiber River. The river deity Tiberinus protected them as the flood waters rose and carried the cradle downstream where Lupa found and nursed them. Lupa is also known as the Capitoline Wolf.

The she-wolf went on to become a symbol of Rome by both the Romans and any nation under Roman rule. The symbol, when used in the Roman Provinces was seen as an expression of loyalty to Rome and the emperor.

The wolf is associated with Mars, and with agriculture, fertility and war. There is also a story that suggests Lupa is a goddess that later trains the Roman soldiers.

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Norse Mythology

The wolf is also a symbol associated with warriors, and Odin has two wolves – Geri and Freki – as loyal companions reputed to be a ‘good omen’. Wolves also served as mounts for more or less humanoid creatures in various parts of the Poetic Edda. In ‘The Lay of Hyndla, the völva (witch) Hyndla is also described as using a wolf as a mount. A giantess named Hyrrokin arrives mounted on a wolf to the funeral of Baldr.

The most famous myth about wolves in the Norse mythology is Fenrir, born from the God Loki and the giantess Angerbod. Prophesised to be the one to kill Odin during Ragnarok, Fenrir is viewed as a symbol of chaos and destruction. Fenrir is the father of Skol and Hati.

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Japanese Mythology

In Shinto belief, the wolf, Okami, is regarded as a messenger of the kami spirits. Wolves were also said to offer protection against crop raiders such as boar and deer. Grain farmers worshipped shrines and left food offerings near their dens beseeching them to protect their crops.

The mountains of Japan which were viewed as dangerous and deadly place were associated with the wolf. It was believed that the wolf was their protector and guardian.  In Japanese folklore, there is a tale of the okuiōkami (‘escort wolf’) that would follow someone walking alone through a forest. It would follow them until they reached their home, without doing them any harm. Sometimes an offering was made for this escort. There are also many mountain villages named after the wolf such as Okamiiwa (Wolf Rock) and Okamitaira (Wolf Plateau).

Another belief is that wolves raised infants which were abandoned in the forest of the Kii Peninsula. The clan leader Fujiwara no Hidehira is believed to have been raised by wolves. In the Kanto region of Eastern Japan, it was believed that feeding an infant milk from a wolf would make them grow up strong.

Talismans and charmed adorned in the imagery of wolves were thought to protect against fire, disease and other calamities.

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North American Indian Mythology

Wolves are considered a medicine being. They are associated with courage, strength, loyalty and success at hunting.

Native Americans have long seen the wolf as an animal of power with many tribes attributing the actual creator of the earth to be a wolf. The Arikara and Objibwe believed a wolf-man spirit made the Great Plains for them and for other animals. The Quileute and the Kwakiutl tell of their first ancestors were transformed from wolves into men.

There is an Omaha legend in which a wolf guides a wounded warrior back to his camp. It would alert him whenever there were rival warriors nearby and showed him the easiest path.

The Navajo were known for calling upon the wolf to aid in healing ceremonies. Apache warriors would pray, sing and dance to gain the teamwork, strength and bravery of wolves before a battle. The Pawnee, being both an agricultural and hunting people, associated the wolf with both corn and bison.

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Turco Mongolian Mythology

The wolf is a revered animal for the Turkic and Mongolian peoples. In their mythology, wolves were believed to be the ancestors of the Turks, Mongols and the Ainu. This comes from the Legend of Asena. A small Turkic village in North China was raided by Chinese soldiers, but one small child survived the raid and was left behind. An old she-wolf with a sky blue mane name Asena found and nursed the child back to health. Impregnated by the boy, Asena escapes he enemies by crossing the Western Sea to a cave near the Qocho mountains and the city of Tocharians. She later gives birth to ten half wolf, half human cubs.

Also in Turkic mythology, it is believed that a grey wolf showed the Turks the way out of their legendary homeland ‘Ergenekon’. This allowed them to spread and conquer their neighbours. In modern Mongolia, the wolf is still seen as a good luck symbol, especially for males

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Egyptian Mythology

Wepawet – The Opener of Ways (sometimes depicted as a jackal) features in late Egyptian mythology. Wepawet was originally a war deity whose cult centre was in Asyut in Upper Egypt (Lycopolis in the Greco-Roman period). He is often seen as wolf standing at the prow of a solar boat. An interpretation of this is that Wepawet was a scout and would go first to clear the way for the forces to proceed forwards.

Wepawet was originally seen as a wolf deity, hence the Greek name of Lycopolis – City of Wolves. It is reckoned that Wepawet was originally a symbol of the pharaoh seeking to associate with wolf-like attributes. Over time, the connection to war and so to death, lead Wepawet to be seen as the one who opened the way to and through Duat (Realm of the Dead). This then leads Wepawet to become associated to Anubis, and later to be considered his son.

Original article: Wolves in Mythology.

The Wolf and the Mage is a short story that I initially wrote over ten years ago and became the inspiration to Vaenel and Aengal in Sykajume. I recently re-edited it slightly to tie directly into the Sirin Chronicles with the corresponding characters and locations – when I first wrote it, it was based in an entirely different world. Influencers for The Wolf and the Mage come from Fenrir in the Norse mythology and from stories and tales of Atlantis.

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Once there was a great wolf that stalked the shadows of the great Rannan Forest, his name unintelligible to the ears of man. Cast down from the heavens and cursed to stalk among the chapel pines and sentinel oaks for all eternity, the beast of darkness hunted any foolish enough to enter the secret depths of the forest, for his appetite was insatiable.

At the meeting of wooden boughs and stone buttresses, the shadow wolf made his den. A forsaken glade where crystal clear water cascaded into shallow pools of the phantom crystal where only the rare astralae plant grew, for nothing living dared to near such a place.

Then one day, the silence of his glade was disrupted by the sound of silver bells and bangles colliding together as the wind whispered through the leaves and carried the fragrance of geranium to him. His eyes searched through the dappled shadows, falling upon a young woman walking alone through the dusk. Her eyes looking straight into his soul and silenced the madness already wakening deep inside, though he feared the ravenous appetite that would surely come as the scent of her blood beneath delicate skin assailed his senses.

A powerful mage often walked alone through the deep forest chapels, especially at sunset when golden light set fire to the dust motes dancing within an idle breeze. She was a priestess in training at the Temple of Stars of Kata Jinja. Enchanted by this latest intruder to his secret world, the shadow beast watched her from afar as she came with each setting sun, foraging for the finest herbs, fruits and seeds, following the rush of water.

Their eyes met more than once, her soul-piercing deep into his own as though she were reaching out to him through a dream in the magic hour of twilight, a vision crossing different realities and different times. With pearlescent, shimmering skin and the piercing eyes of burning gold showing from beneath her mantle of indigo, he was reminded of the ethereal home of his kin, and the children sired from stars.

The power within the mage reverberated around her soul, her presence somehow silencing the wolf’s curse a little more each time she came into his presence. She was often gathering herbs for cleansing and healing the skin, the astringent smell often mingling with the intoxicating perfume of geranium that lingered on her skin.

The wolf, calmed by her presence, began to collect the astralae plants that grew in his glade and left them close by, howling softly through the twilight before melting back into the safe shadows of his forest. His keen ears would pick out the jingling music of her presence and his heart would beat erratically, urging him to turn back.

This vision was the life the mage never had and a great sadness came over him. His mournful howls slashing through the night as he rushed through the forlorn chapel of decaying forest, searching for the lost soul of the mage as his snarls and growls of frustration thundered from the ancient forest and made the mountains tremble. Why couldn’t he remember the truth about the mage?

He remembered the dream of her before his ruination and fall from the heavens. The youngest child of the Sykajume that looked to the stars every night, always finding him even as he hunted through the vast ocean of celestial matter. Was that before or after this dream? Night after night, the dream would come in some guise again and soothe the wolf’s soul, only to awaken to a bleak and vengeful dawn and the stagnation of death all around. All at once he had lived for thousands of years and none at all.

One night a different dream came to him. At last, he had somehow left Rannan Forest and was carefully moving through an overgrown garden of a castle courtyard that was as ancient as he sometimes felt, and collapsed in many places. As he stopped to lap at the cool water of a spring, his ears heard the rustling of someone approaching, and he felt something small collide with his flank as he turned. A young child, too pale for the harsh sun of the castle’s location, was nestling into his fur full of contentment, clutching tightly as though frightened he would vanish.

When he next opened his eyes, he was startled to find the mage had reached the glade. He stood as impulsive rage and defence overpowering the innate strength of the young woman and her control over his curse. He towered above her with his fangs bared, her scent consuming him and the madness threatening to consume him entirely.

The mage never quailed, simply standing resolutely before him with a curious expression in her eyes as she raised a crystalline dagger to the level of her heart. Diamond light filled the blade, splashing into the air like starlight, her fierce soul binding him to the spot as the blade flicked through the air and severed the celestial chains of fate that bound him to the forest and confined him in time.

She fell to her knees before him from exhaustion, beseeching him for help with a curse placed upon her by her own family as her breath ravaged her once strong body. The words came to him across a great distance as he turned back in the direction he had come. In the instance of his liberation, his spirit had rejoiced and he took flight, dashing from the cloying shadows of his prison for the powerful, icy winds of the mountain peaks.

He knew already it was too late to help the mage out, she had already gone. He had seen the ruins of the great temple of Kata Jinja and the black scarring from the flames of an ajukara. For a long time, the great wolf sat watch above Kata Jinja as memories returned to him. He had been cursed twice, first by his own kind, and then by the family of the Sykajuman girl. Somehow that girl had broken the first of his curses and tamed his wild heart, and unable to speak his given name, she had started calling him Vaenel.

Finally moving from his perch by the temple entrance, he walked towards the mighty crystal tree at the far end of the small town that still maintained its faded glow against the dark world and guarded it’s most precious treasure. Dropping down through a gap in the routes, Vaenel found the sepulchre created by the soul tree in the moment of the Sykajuman curse, perfumed by countless geraniums growing within.

The girl’s body was suspended in a capsule of soft golden white light as though she were falling through space, preserved for all eternity by the power of the tree exactly as she had fallen. The curse had formed celestial fate chains that snaked all around the girl’s limbs, biting into the skin as his own had done for so long.

How many times must he lose her soul? They had been cursed never to cross realities again, though the soul that had forced the girl from her body was still searching for him, fighting against the odds and searching the depths of the ethereal realms and insanity to reach him.

The wolf carefully plucked a geranium flower and placed it into the girl’s hand before reaching into the light to join her in one final embrace. He discarded his physical form and gave himself back to the world of dreams and the absence of time. Unbound, he was free to travel the ethereal worlds unhindered and could search for his mage in as many incarnations as it took to save her soul from the darkness.

• Artwork by Scarlet Letter (Pixabay)

Original article: The Wolf and the Mage.

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(Image from Comfreak on Pixabay)

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I’ve been in love with wolves for as long as I can remember. I’ve always been enchanted by them, the way they are, their howls, and what they stand for when the negativity is taken away. My first school project was about them, and the first story I ever wrote also focussed on them. In every book I wrote, I had the same wolf character recycled until I wrote a story I wanted to stay with. For many years the character was known as Fenrir, straight out of Norse mythology; and his story was loosely in keeping with the original tale while also mixed in with a recurring waking dream I’d had since as far back as I can remember – a wolf-god and a young woman of powerful magical abilities, which became the story between Aengal and Vaenal.

I’ve possibly driven my parents to wit’s end every time there’s been a documentary about wild animals on over the years, and I’m continually repeating my frustration that wolves are seldom shown. It was never, then a few years ago they did seem to get the occasional token moment of screen-time, and I think there’s been two, maybe three documentaries specifically about them since. One of those was a short time-lapse film that showed the transformation to Yellowstone since their re-release to the sight, and the effect they have on the habitat. I mean, their presence in the grand scheme of things changed the course of the river, how can you not love them?

As a child, I loved the Jungle Book with Mowgli growing up within a pack of wolves, and the tale of Romulus and Remus being taken and raised by a she-wolf. There is also the she-wolf Asena, which is sort of cool….but also mostly disturbing. Then I found ‘The Sight’ by David Clement-Davies and ‘Princess Mononoke’ by Studio Ghibli which portrayed the wolves as having some level of compassion to humans, and their rage against humans makes sense within the story.

As I grew older, it became a more an involved process to make wolves much more prominent than just my affection for the wolves, and to give more representation for them (“They’re just seriously misunderstood creatures”). In almost every story, wolves are always shown as the bad guys; shown as deceitful or sinful, or pure lustfully evil beasts with an insatiable hunger – The Big Bad Wolf from Aesop’s fables and Grimm’s fairytales.

This is possibly something started by the Biblical references to wolves being seen as threatening and sinful, and it definitely doesn’t help that Fenrir in the Norse mythology was basically the harbinger of the end of the world, with offspring kin Skol and Hati the devourers of the sun and the moon.

But why weren’t any of the other predatory animals dragged into the muck? Why is a lion seen as loyal, brave and courageous, but not the wolf which has a whole host of endearing qualities to rival the lion?

I once asked an ex if he’d ever seen or heard a wolf in the wild as he was from Poland, to which he shuddered and told me how violent and dangerous they were – and yes, they are wild, unpredictable and dangerous, especially when not treated with respect to their nature. The ocean is more fickle and deadly, yet people still dive in and often without a thought – he was implying that a wolf would purposefully leave the depths of the forest to come and hunt you for dinner. It didn’t go down well when I suggested a camping trip, that’s for sure.

Thankfully wolves are starting to get their moment in the light in media, most prominently the direwolves in A Song of Ice and Fire by George RR Martin, and with artists such as Anne Stokes and Lisa Parker creating some truly fantastic images amongst others.

Hopefully one day in the not so distant future, wolves will be in their rightful place next to many of the fantastic, magical and positive creatures. Also, hopefully, I’ll get to one of the wolf conservation sites here in the UK and finally see one in the fur.

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Wolves in Mythology
Famous Wolves in History {coming soon}
The Wolf and the Mage

What else do you want to read about? Leave a comment or drop me a message and let me know! And if you enjoy what you read here, please consider buying me a coffee to help keep the coffee vampire awake and writing =^.^=

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Original article: Why Wolves?.