nursed by the
She-wolf'' (c. 1616),
Peter Paul Rubens In
Proto-Indo-European mythology, the wolf was presumably associated with the warrior class (
kóryos), who would "transform into wolves" (or dogs) upon their initiation. This is reflected in Iron Age Europe in the
Tierkrieger depictions from the Germanic sphere, among others. The standard comparative overview of this aspect of Indo-European mythology is McCone (1987)
Baltic According to legend, the establishment of the
Lithuanian capital
Vilnius began when the grand duke
Gediminas dreamt of an
iron wolf howling near the
hill. Lithuanian goddess
Medeina was described as a single, unwilling to get married, though voluptuous and beautiful huntress. She was depicted as a she-wolf with an escort of wolves.
Dacian In his book
From Zalmoxis to Genghis Khan, Mircea Eliade attempted to give a mythological foundation to an alleged special relation between Dacians and the wolves: • Dacians might have called themselves "wolves" or "ones the same with wolves", suggesting religious significance. • Dacians draw their name from a god or a legendary ancestor who appeared as a wolf. • Dacians had taken their name from a group of fugitive immigrants arrived from other regions or from their own young outlaws, who acted similarly to the wolves circling villages and living from looting. As was the case in other societies, those young members of the community went through an initiation, perhaps up to a year, during which they lived as a "wolf". Comparatively,
Hittite laws referred to fugitive outlaws as "wolves". • The existence of a ritual that provides one with the ability to turn into a wolf. Such a transformation may be related either to
lycanthropy itself, a widespread phenomenon, but attested especially in the
Balkans-
Carpathian region, or a ritual imitation of the behavior and appearance of the wolf. Such a ritual was presumably a military initiation, potentially reserved to a secret brotherhood of warriors (or
Männerbünde). To become formidable warriors they would assimilate behavior of the wolf, wearing wolf skins during the ritual. Traces related to wolves as a cult or as totems were found in this area since the
Neolithic period, including the
Vinča culture artifacts: wolf statues and fairly rudimentary figurines representing dancers with a wolf mask. The items could indicate warrior initiation rites, or ceremonies in which young people put on their seasonal wolf masks. The element of unity of beliefs about
werewolves and lycanthropy exists in the magical-religious experience of mystical solidarity with the wolf by whatever means used to obtain it. But all have one original myth, a primary event.
Germanic Norse mythology prominently includes three malevolent wolves, in particular: the giant
Fenrisulfr or Fenrir, eldest child of
Loki and
Angrboda who was feared and hated by the
Æsir, and Fenrisulfr's children,
Sköll and
Hati. Fenrir is bound by the gods, but is ultimately destined to grow too large for his bonds and devour
Odin during the course of
Ragnarök. At that time, he will have grown so large that his upper jaw touches the sky while his lower touches the earth when he gapes. He will be slain by Odin's son,
Viðarr, who will either stab him in the heart or rip his jaws asunder, according to different accounts. Fenrir's two offspring will, according to legend, devour the sun and moon at Ragnarök. On the other hand, however, the wolves
Geri and Freki were the Norse god
Odin's faithful pets who were reputed to be "of good omen." Wolves were seen as both being negative and positive to the Norse people. On one hand, they represent the untameable forces of nature (e.g. Fenrir, Skoll, and Hati), while on the other hand, they can also represent bravery, loyalty, protection, and wisdom. In the
Hervarar saga, king
Heidrek is asked by
Gestumblindi (
Odin), "What is that lamp which lights up men, but flame engulfs it, and
wargs grasp after it always." Heidrek knows the answer is the
Sun, explaining: "She lights up every land and shines over all men, and Skoll and Hatti are called wargs. Those are wolves, one going before the sun, the other after the moon." But wolves also served as mounts for more or less dangerous humanoid creatures. For instance, ''
Gunnr's horse'' was a
kenning for "wolf" on the
Rök runestone; in the
Lay of Hyndla, the
völva Hyndla rides a wolf; and to
Baldr's funeral, the
gýgr Hyrrokin arrived on a wolf.
Wolf or
Wulf is used as a surname, given name, and a name among Germanic-speaking peoples. "Wolf" is also a component in other Germanic names: •
Wolfgang (
wolf +
gang ("path, journey")) •
Adolf, derived from the
Old High German Athalwolf, a composition of
athal, or
adal, meaning
noble, and
wolf; its
Anglo-Saxon cognate is
Æthelwulf. •
Rudolf, deriving from two stems:
Rod or
Hrōð, meaning "fame", and
olf meaning "wolf" (
see also Hroðulf).
Greek The
Ancient Greeks associated wolves with the sun god
Apollo.
Indian In the
Rig Veda, Ṛjrāśva is blinded by his father as punishment for having given 101 of his family's sheep to a she-wolf, who in turn prays to the
Ashvins to restore his sight. Wolves are occasionally mentioned in
Hindu mythology. In the
Harivamsa,
Krishna, to convince the people of
Vraja to migrate to
Vṛndāvana, creates hundreds of wolves from his hairs, which frighten the inhabitants of Vraja into making the journey.
Bhima, the voracious son of the god
Vayu, is described as
Vṛkodara, meaning "wolf-stomached".
Iranic According to Zoroastrian legends,
Zoroaster as a child was carried by the devs (the gods) to the lair of the she-wolf, in expectation that the savage beast would kill it; but she accepted it among her own cubs, and Vahman brought an ewe (female sheep) to the den which suckled it. (It was impossible in the Zoroastrian legend for the wolf herself to give milk to the infant, since wolves are regarded as daevic creatures.) According to the
Avesta, the
sacred text of the
Zoroastrians, wolves are a creation from the 'darkness' of the evil spirit
Ahriman, and are ranked among the most cruel of animals. and belong to the
daevas. The
Bundahishn, which is a
Middle Persian text on the Zoroastrian creation myth, has a chapter dedicated to the 'nature of wolves' as seen in Zoroastrian mythology and belief.
Wusuns, an Indo-European semi-nomadic steppe people of
Iranian origin, had a legend that after their king Nandoumi was killed by
Yuezhi, another Indo-European people, Nandoumi's infant son Liejiaomi was left in the wild and He was miraculously saved from hunger being suckled by a she-wolf, and fed meat by ravens.
Roman In
Roman mythology wolves are mainly associated to
Mars, god of war and agriculture. The
Capitoline Wolf nurses
Romulus and Remus, sons of Mars and future founders of
Rome. The twin babies were ordered to be killed by their great uncle
Amulius. The servant ordered to kill them, however, relented and placed the two on the banks of the
Tiber river. The river, which was in flood, rose and gently carried the cradle and the twins downstream, where under the protection of the river deity
Tiberinus, they would be adopted by a she-wolf known as
Lupa in
Latin, an animal sacred to
Mars. As a consequence, the
Italian wolf is the
national animal of the modern
Italian Republic. In Antiquity, the she-wolf was identified as a symbol of Rome by both the Romans themselves and nations under the Roman rule. The
Lupa Romana was an iconic scene that represented in the first place the idea of
romanitas, being Roman. When it was used in the
Roman Provinces, it can be seen as an expression of loyalty to Rome and the emperor. The treatment given to wolves differed from the treatment meted out to other large predators. The Romans generally seem to have refrained from intentionally harming wolves. For instance, they were not hunted for pleasure (but only in order to protect herds that were out at pasture), and not displayed in the
venationes, either. The special status of the wolf was not based on national ideology, but rather was connected to the religious importance of the wolf to the Romans. The comedian
Plautus used the image of wolves to ponder the cruelty of
man as a wolf unto man. "
Lupus" (Wolf) was used as a Latin first name and as a
Roman cognomen.
Slavic The
Slavic languages share a term for "
werewolf" derived from the
Common Slavic vuko-dlak, meaning "wolf-fur". The wolf as a mythological creature plays an important role in Balkan and
Serbian mythology and cults. In the
Slavic and old Serbian religion and mythology, the wolf was used as a
totem. In
Serbian epic poetry, the wolf is a symbol of fearlessness.
Vuk Karadžić, the 19th-century
Serbian philologist and
ethnographer, explained the traditional,
apotropaic use of his own name
Vuk ("wolf"): A woman who had lost several babies in succession would name her newborn son Vuk, as it was believed that the witches, who "ate" babies, were afraid to attack wolves. ==Japanese==