Folk Tales of the Wolf

INTRODUCTION

We reached the old wolf in time to watch a fierce green fire dying in her eyes. I realised then, and have known ever since, that there was something new to me in those eyes - something known only to her and to the mountain. I was young then, and full of trigger-itch; I thought that because fewer wolves meant more deer, that no wolves would mean hunters' paradise. But after seeing the green fire die, I sensed that neither the wolf nor the mountain agreed with such a view.

ALDO LEOPOLD

Curiously, this very morning, I planned to write the introduction to this book, and on waking I switched on BBC Radio 4 and for once, there was a news item that gave me goosebumps, even a shiver of excitement. My constitution was unexpectedly stirred, and an unusual sense of hope flared up briefly. Rather than the usual heart-sinking geopolitics unfolding with terrible consequences for people and planet, for once there was something uplifting, some investment of hope that might even turn into a possibility. The newsreader broadcast that a team of university researchers from Leeds had concluded that a population of up to 170 wolves could feasibly be reintroduced to Scotland. The one rationalisation given was as a mitigation against climate change. With wolves predating on the overabundance of red deer, the trees would be spared from grazing and would be an effective carbon storage scheme - equivalent to any large-scale tree planting campaign. Did I really just hear that on the mainstream news? I must confess, I reeled, and paused to gaze out of my window, a steaming hot cup of tea in my hand. I indulged myself with a bit of daydreaming about the prospect of wolves returning to Britain.

Imagine . just for a few moments . twenty to thirty wolf packs roaming the wild vastness of remote Scotland, putting the long-lost wild back into place. Let's briefly set aside the complexity of this, and the inevitable pockets of resistance, e.g. from those that steward the land with livestock . and just lean into the dream. If the Yellowstone Park model is anything to go by (not a simple story, rather fraught with nuance and complexity), there has been a well-documented uplift in biodiversity in the region, thanks to the trophic cascade effect of reintroducing the wolf to the eco-system as an apex predator. Well, the UK certainly needs an uplift in this regard. In terms of its wildlife, I was heartbroken to learn that it's one of the most denuded countries in the world, the legacy of the long and bitter enmity between farmers and wild animals.

A reintroduction of our lost keystone species, of which there are at least a dozen mammals - wild boar, lynx, golden eagle, beaver and grey whales to name a few - would transform our own ecosystems and bring life back to the land. Of course, there are obstacles, particularly when it comes to the predators that would likely prey on livestock. Conservationists have worked hard to present a plausible case for many reintroductions to the benefit of all, including the humans that push back hard against it. It's a wider debate than I have scope to present here, but given that we are entering the territory of the 'dreamtime' in a book of stories, I think we can indulge ourselves a little.

Wolves in Britain. It's quite an idea, and it's gaining traction, as the news report suggests. For those who immediately baulk at the prospect, let's remind ourselves of two things: one, they were here amongst us for a long time before a systematic extermination programme saw them eradicated by the eighteenth century. (A long time before that in England). And two, there have been remarkably few incidences of wolves attacking humans, making them a lot less dangerous than is generally presumed. In fact, they have been endlessly fascinating to the human cultures living in proximity. As Clarissa Pinkola Estes observes:

Wolves . are relational by nature, inquiring, possessed of great endurance and strength. They are deeply intuitive, intensely concerned with their young, their mate and their pack. [They] have been hounded, harassed and falsely imputed to be devouring and devious, overly aggressive, of less value than those who are their detractors.

The real issue, of course, was their propensity for easy pickings, preying on the sheep flocks that flooded England's green and pleasant land in a new system of livestock husbandry that was soon to generate the wealth that helped lift Britain out of the Dark Ages. Before this, the wolf, like the bear and the lynx, coexisted in relative harmony with the human communities, performing their essential eco-system balancing act that played a key role in Britain's abundant nature. I can sometimes allow myself to imagine Britain in these times, before agriculture had really taken a bite out of biodiversity. An Eden of sorts, which Benedict MacDonald describes so evocatively in the first chapter of his marvellous book, Rebirding. Can you visualise an intact, wild Britain, complete with the mosaic of rich habitats, from marshland and moorland to wood pastures and wildwoods and much, much more? Imagine the soundtrack that this teeming profusion of life would have afforded. And, controversially perhaps, let's not forget to embed ourselves into these bucolic landscapes. I firmly believe that our species was, originally at least, a critical piece in the whole puzzle, though not in the way that humanity now occupies and colonises territory - living instead in a much more sympathetic and empathetic way, interacting and intervening with the biota of the earth to sustain ourselves physically, but also, and most significantly, culturally. Surely it was part of the equilibrium of the eco-systems to have us there, fulfilling our ecological niche as an apex predator. In an evolutionary context, we have to be counted in the original 'design concept' as a climax species, and our capacity to understand our world, and our place within it, distinguishes us clearly from other sentient beings. It's a perspective on human potential of course, rather than the damning report we generally tend to give ourselves.

I've been fortunate to spend time in the Kalahari Desert with the San Bushmen, specifically the Ju/'Hansi people who still practise their traditional lifeways, clinging on to their culture in the face of historical and contemporary oppression and exploitation. An extraordinary project supports them to continue traditional methods of tracking, hunting and gathering in a way that was beautiful to behold. I witnessed for the first time how people could belong to the Earth community, in the deepest kinship and reciprocity with the life-forms that dwell there. It's an inspiring example from what is surely the oldest, continuous, intact human culture on the planet. I wish I could tell you more, but please visit the website www.trackingthekalahari.org to find out more about the project.

It's the cultural aspect of our ecological niche that is underestimated, and this is where the stories serve to remind us. Our innate capacity, unique amongst creatures, to imagine and envision what doesn't exist plays a key part in living in an 'enchanted' world. Our ancestors in Britain were no different from any other indigenous people in animating the world around them. We can see in the residues of traditional cultures that they characterised the landscape and its inhabitants with stories, making possible a wholly different acquaintance and sense of belonging than we experience today. One well-known example of this would be the Dreamtime stories of Aboriginal Australia, so beautifully presented by some of their elders in the wondrous exhibition that toured the world recently, called Songlines: Tracking the Seven Sisters.

I'm sure that the people of these islands would have also dreamed deeply and projected rich narrative forms onto everything around them. After all, it's what our species does so uniquely, and so very well. And I have come to believe, regardless of the prism of our contemporary industrialised mindset, it makes for a more meaningful existence to relate to everything as if it's alive, or belonging to a more-than-human 'extended family'.

In Britain, every geological feature has been characterised by story, and it does not take too much digging to find out the narratives behind these features - the myths, legends and folktales that brought the land alive to people of the past. You don't have to look much further than the placename of a village in the UK to know there's a story lurking, a reason it was named in that way. Placename evidence, for example, lists over 200 places in England named after wolves, including Wolborough (Wolves' Hill) and Woolacombe (Wolves' Valley).

So throughout human history, and in every human culture, from all bioregions of the Earth, we were 'story beings', and we still are. Writer and activist Geneen Marie Haugen playfully but also seriously suggests that in fact we have been misnamed by the term 'Homo Sapiens'. A more fitting distinction, she suggests, might be 'Homo Imaginens', her own neologism.

In terms of essence, there's little difference between a traditional tale and a major Hollywood movie, or the plotline of a novel - it's all rooted in basic storylines, of which there are only a surprising seven categories (according to author Christopher Booker). As a traditional storyteller, practising the craft of telling stories to live audiences, it never fails to impress on me the magic and mystery that a good story offers to diverse...