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 Kurope; slightly 
modified it is a common superstition in Abyssinia, 
and even among the Caflres. 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 
orld 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 
