Fables & Fairytales
We all know it is the fable and fairytale wolf who lawlessly huffs down the little Piggies homes and heartlessly swallows Little Red Riding Hood. It is the dastardly wolf who is behind such popular expressions as:
Cry wolf - raise a false alarm.
Wolf at the door - starvation; financial ruin.
Whose afraid of the big bad wolf - a scoff.
A wolf - a cruel, ferocious or rapacious person; a womaniser.
To wolf - to eat ravenously.
A wolf in sheep's clothing - a deceptive or treacherous person.
A wolf's lair - a sinister or cunning person's base.
A wolf pack - a group of bruisers.
Wolf-whistle - a whistle of sexual liking for a woman.
Throw to the wolves - sacrifice someone to save yourself.
Wolf note - a consistent bum note on a musical instrument.
Wolfy - ferocious, uncivilised.
These wolves are the wolf of allegory, fable, myth, parable, anecdote, yarn, exaggeration and fib. What are they? Let's take a quick look at fable and fairytale.
The Beginnings
Fables incorporate stereotype characters and deliver a moral lesson quickly and effectively. Fairytales have a simple plot and develop characters a little more than in fables. Fables and fairytales often portray animals with all the character, wit and failings of humans. At a higher level of interpretation they function in social criticism, obliquely drawing attention to moral behaviour or to social injustice.
In fable and fairytale the wolf is a favourite character. Sketches of wolves are probably based on chance sightings of wolves (methodical wolf research began only about the middle of the 20th century), got mixed up with hearsay and imagination, and then were combined into stories which frightened and entertained people.
Fables
Fables appear to date from at least the 8th century BC. About the 6th century BC fables started to circulate widely and it is from this time the name of Aesop appeared. Aesop was one of the earliest great tellers of fables and perhaps the best known writer today from Ancient Greece where he lived. So little information exists about him that some scholars suggest he might be a fiction made up to unify a collection of disparate fables. Real or not, Aesop's witty tales are some of the first noted references to the artfulness of the wolf, or at least the wolf as a symbol of human nature. With the accent on deception and deceit the wolf plays a principle character in famous fables such as:
The Wolf in Sheep's Clothing
The Shepherd Boy and the Wolf
The Dog and the Wolf
The Wolf and the Lamb
The Wolves and the Sheep
The Wolf and the Shepherds
The Kid and the Wolf
The Wolf and the Kid
The Nurse and the Wolf
The Wolves And The Sheepdogs
The Aesop wolf is a wild untameable beast from the wilderness, sly, dishonourable, scheming, robbing, bloodthirsty, a symbol of depravity and mischief in European society. The Shepherd Boy and the Wolf - popularly known as Cry Wolf - and The Wolf In Sheep's Clothing are among the best loved of Aesop's wolf fables.
A shepherd boy tending his flock near a village cried: "Wolf! Wolf! Wolf! Help me or the wolf will kill my sheep!" The villagers heard him and several times came running to drive away the wolf. But he always laughed at them because he did not really see a wolf. One day a real wolf came along and attacked his flock. The boy cried "Wolf! Wolf! Wolf! Help me or the wolf will kill my sheep!" But the people did not came to his aid because no one believed him any more. So the wolf ate all his sheep.
Moral: lying does not pay.
A wolf finds the thrown away fleece of a slaughtered sheep. He covers himself with it and saunters down among the flock while the shepherd and his dogs are away. A lamb sees what she thinks is her mother and follows the wolf, who goes to one side and makes a quick and easy snack of her. This happens time and again to the wolf's delight.
Moral: appearances are deceptive.
A presumption of these fables, which rubs off onto real wolves, is that all wolves are always scoundrels who will steal a shepherds labour if he does not properly look after his flock.
Fairytales
The Three Little Pigs and Little Red Riding Hood are the most popular fairytales about wolves. (Also see Introducing The Big Bad Wolf.)
Three young pigs leave home to make their way in life. They have to construct their own homes. Two of the youngsters play around all day and simply put up a house of straw and the other of sticks. The third little pig is industrious and works hard to build a sturdy house of bricks. A hungry wolf happens by and huffs and puffs and easily blows down the flimsy dwellings of straw and sticks and eats the first two little pigs. But the wolf cannot blow down the tough house of bricks and thus this pig is saved. A tragic ending for the wolf in a version of this fairy tail is that when he climbs down the chimney of the third pig he falls into the boiling cauldron, is cooked and eaten.
Moral: hard work and enterprise triumphs over evil forces and misfortune (the wolf).
A young girl called Little Red Riding Hood sets out to visit her granny. She must walk through the dark and dangerous woods, so her mother warns her to keep to the path and go straight to her granny's cottage. But Little Red ignores her mother's advice. She leaves the path and occupies herself picking flowers and listening to the birds. Suddenly a wolf pops up and asks where she is going. She is too young to know the nature of wolves so she tells him.
The wolf decides on a plan to gobble up the tasty little girl and her old granny. He rushes off to granny's cottage, tricks his way inside and immediately swallows up the stringy old bag. Then the big bad wolf (so called because he is crafty and blood lusting) jumps into her bed, dons her cap and night-gown and pulls up the bed clothes around him. When Little Red arrives she does not recognise him as the wolf and he eats her up too. Then he falls asleep replete and satisfied.
But a different ending is sometimes told. A woodsman arrives, splits the wolf open with his axe and frees unharmed Little Red Ridding Hood and her granny. Too bad for the wolf, who is portrayed as a greedy killer and eater of children and women.
Moral: do not stray from the right path and beware of wolves (or, if you like, predatory male seducers) and you will come to no harm. In other words, obey your parents.
Rehabilitation?
Fables and fairytales are a rich inheritance from our past in which the wolf plays a significant role. But the fable and fairytale wolf has been the preserve of much bad publicity for wolves. There is a move in the last few years to transform and rehabilitate him and other hard done by animals in fairytales. Wolf well-wishers are out to even the balance with stories such as The True Story of the Three Little Pigs and The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig. At last the story can be told how it really was - from the wolf's point of view! (See Younger Wolf Books.)
Final
A good fable to end on is Aesop's The Wolf And The Shepherds:
Bibliography
Temple, Olivia & Temple, Robert (1998): Aesop: the complete fables. Penguin Books.
© Wolf Trust 2004. All rights reserved.
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