350 SHAKESPEARE'S [WOLF. 



any part of his flesh, they empty their bellies of the earth 

 as unprofitable food. If there be many of them, in hunting 

 together they equally divide the prey among them all. 

 One saw a Wolf in a wood take in his mouth a piece of 

 timber of some 30 or 40 pound weight, and with that he 

 did practise to leap over the trunk of a tree that lay upon 

 the earth ; at length when he perceived his own ability and 

 dexterity in leaping with that weight in his mouth, he did 

 there make his cave and lodged behind that tree. At last 

 it fortuned there came a wild sow to seek for meat along 

 by that tree, with divers of her pigs following her, of 

 different age, some a year old, some half a year, and some 

 less. When he saw them near him, he suddenly set upon 

 one of them, which he conjectured was about the weight 

 of wood which he carried in his mouth, and when he had 

 taken him, whilst the old sow came to deliver her pig at 

 his first crying, he suddenly leaped over the tree with the 

 pig in his mouth, and the poor sow could not leap after 

 him, and yet might stand and see the Wolf to eat the pig 

 which he had taken from her. When they will deceive 

 goats, they come unto them with the green leaves and 

 small boughs ot osiers in their mouths, wherewithal they 

 know goats are delighted, that so they may draw them 

 therewith, as to a bait to devour them. Their manner is 

 when they fall upon a goat or a hog, not to kill them, 

 but to lead them by the ear with all the speed they can 

 drive them to their fellow-Wolves ; and if the beast be 

 stubborn, and will not run with him, then he beateth his 

 hinder-parts with his tail, holding his ear fast in his mouth. 

 But if it be a swine that is so gotten, then they lead him 

 to the waters, and there kill him, for if they eat him not 

 out of cold water, their teeth doth burn with an untolerable 

 heat. If a horse tread upon the footsteps of a Wolf which 

 is under a horse -man or rider, he breaketh in pieces, or 

 else standeth amazed. If a W^olf treadeth in the foot-steps 

 of a horse which draweth a waggon, he cleaveth fast in the 

 road as if he were frozen. The Wolf is afraid of a sea- 

 crab or shrimp. If a man anoint himself with the fat or 

 suet taken out of the reins of a lion, it will drive away 

 from him all kinds of Wolves. The Ravens are in per- 

 petual enmity with Wolves, and the antipathy of their 

 natures is so violent that if a raven eat of the carcase of 

 a beast which the Wolf hath killed, or formerly tasted of, 



