98 WOLF DAYS IX PENNSYLVANIA. 



crushed the wolf's skull. She carried the carcass 

 home, where her husband skinned it, and it was used 

 to cover their infant, which was then in its cradle. 

 So much for that story. Compare it to the following, 

 which is quoted word for word from James E. Hart- 

 ing's well known account of the wolves of Scotland in 

 "Extinct British Animals:" "Another story is on 

 record of a wolf killed by a woman of Cre-Cebhan, 

 near Strui, on the North Side of the Strath Glass. 

 She had gone to Strui to borrow a girdle (a thick, cir- 

 cular plate of iron, with an iron loop handle at one side 

 for lifting, and used for baking bread). Having pro- 

 cured it, and being on her way home, she sat down 

 upon an old cairn to rest and gossip with a neighbor, 

 when suddenly a scraping of stones and rustling of 

 leaves were heard, and the head of a wolf protruded 

 from a crevice at her side. Instead of fleeing in 

 alarm, however, she dealt him such a blow on the 

 skull with the full swing of her iron discus, that it 

 brained him on the stone which served for his emerg- 

 ing head." This emphasizes the words of' the late 

 Andrew Lang, which were somewhat like this : "Su- 

 perstitions are very much the same, despite varying 

 climes and creeds." This story is probably centuries 

 old, and similar occurrences have revived its details 

 in the minds of the old people. Near the scene of this 

 adventure, about 1835, a pack of wolves drove a flock 

 of sheep belonging to James Williams on the ice 

 which covered the West Branch of the Susquehanna 

 River, and the animals slipped, and falling were easy 



