g84 Mr. Hardy oji the Wolf in Scotland. 



The story of the last wolf of Sutherland was told to Mr. 

 J, F. Campbell, by the Duke of Sutherland's head forester in 

 1848, and is given in his " Popular Tales of the West High- 

 lands," i. pp. 273, 274. " There was once a time Avhen there 

 were wolves in Sutherland, and a woman that was living in 

 a little town lost one of her children. They went all about 

 the hills looking for the lad, but they could not find him for 

 three days. At the end of that time they gave up, but there 

 was a young lad coming home late through a big cairn of 

 stones, and he heard the crying of a child, and a kind of 

 noise, and he went up to the cairn, and what should he see, 

 in a hole under a big stone, but the boy and two young 

 wolves with him. He was frightened that the old wolf would 

 come, so he went home to the town, and got tAvo others with 

 him, and in the morning they went back to the cairn and 

 they found the hole. Then one of the lads stopped outside 

 to watch, and the other two went in, and they began to kill 

 the young wolves, and they were squealing, and the old one 

 heard them, and she came running to the place, and slipped 

 between the legs of the lad who was watching, and got her 

 head into the hole, but he held her by the tail. ' What ' 

 said the lad who was inside, ' is keeping the light from us V 

 ' If the root of Fionn (or if the hairy root) breaks thou wilt 

 know,' said the man outside. He held on, and the lads that 

 were inside killed the wolf and the young ones, and they 

 took the boy home to his mother, and his family were alive 

 in the time of my grandfather, and they say they were never 

 like other people." This reminds Mr. C. of Romulus and 

 Remus, and he might also have cited Cyrus and his canine 

 nurse. " It appears on very strong evidence that wolves 

 really carry off and suckle children in Oude now, and that 

 these children grow up half savages." He adds that he has 

 heard the same story told in the Highlands of a wild boar. 

 I have also heard the same tale of a Highland wild sow, and 

 a very ludicrous tale it was. There is a version of it in 

 " Tales and Sketches of the Ettrick Shepherd," but the scene 

 is transferred to America. Its resemblance to one of the 

 Morayshire traditions, (afterwards cited,) is worthy of remark. 

 Large tracts of the Highland forests were purposely de- 

 stroyed in the latter part of the 16th and the early part of 

 the 17tli century. " On the south side of Beann Nevis a 

 large pine forest, which extended from the western braes of 

 Lochaber to the Black water, and the mosses of Ranach, was 

 burned to expel the wolves. In the neighbourhood of Loch 



