142 THE WOLVES. 



pearing, in Europe at least, that wolves by no 

 means pair every autumn. 



The malevolent sagacity, fearful howling, and 

 originally obtrusive pertinacity, which led the wolf 

 to roam about the habitations of mankind, and 

 show his sinister eyes flaming in the dark, were no 

 doubt the cause of that mysterious power he was 

 presumed to possess. We can trace, in the earliest 

 institutions, poems, and history of nations, the awe 

 they inspired. The wolf was sacred to Apollo : a 

 she-wolf having nursed him, as another nursed 

 Remus and Romulus. The figure of one was adored 

 by the people of Parnassus: it was a military en- 

 sign of the Macedonians, of the Romans, and of the 

 Ostragoths. In the metamorphoses of the ancients, 

 the wolf is conspicuous ; and that demons assume 

 its shape, that sorcerers and incantators alternately 

 pass from the human to the lupine form, is believed 

 by the vulgar throughout Asia and Europe ; slightly 

 modified it is a common superstition in Abyssinia, 

 and even among the Cafires. The goldfoot (wolf) 

 is an attendant upon Odin, as he was more anciently 

 upon Mars; and he is the type of the destroyer, 

 under the name of Fenrir, in the twilight of the 

 gods, when, according to Scandinavian lore, the 

 world shall perish, and the gods themselves will be 

 consumed. If the Druids assumed the name of 

 red-eared dogs, the priests of the Egyptians, Ro- 

 mans, and several other nations, including the Blot- 

 mannur of the north, were likewise designated as 



