Wolf! Was It The "Last" Wolf?

 One thing youy will find, I certainly have over 50 years and I have read a lot, is that there are many "Last wolf killed" or "last cougar killed" stories.  It gets confusing. If the last wolf was killed at such-and-such a location on such- and -such date then how was the last wolf also killed at such-and-such a location on such- and -such date??

We are dealing with oral history and local oral history at that. It was, I am sorry to write, a proudf boast that an area had killed off the last badger, fox, otter or wolf. The killer was then a local folklore hero and evenb in 2022 some still recount the last act of lupicide as a great battle of man and beast (ignoring, if they know of it, the felicide, melecide or vulpicide that went on in their area/country).  The next county over in the days of foot or horse travel was quite literally another country -even accents were different. So the Laird of one area obviously wanted the praise and gratitude of people for haing "his man" get rid of a foul beast and the animal in question was often built up into a killer of children and women!

Many interpret "the last wolf" accounts as meaning "The last wolf in Scotland" but when you actually check the original accounts you see why there is confusion: the accounts refer to the last wolf in a region as demonstrated here:

The River Findhorn

Popular legend has it that the very last wolf killed in the Highlands (and so considered to be the last in Britain), was killed by the hunter MacQueen, of Pall-a-chrocain, on the river Findhorn, in 1743. MacQueen himself, who died in 1797, was a giant of a man, and renowned as a deer hunter.

A great black beast had killed two children (shades of the Beast of Gevaudan, France although that was a hyena as noted in my book Strange and Mysterious Beasts), and the Laird of MacIntosh had called a meeting above Fi-Guithas to seek out and destroy the perpetrator. All were there at the allotted hour except for MacQueen. When he eventually he arrived MacIntosh asked sarcastically: "What kept you?" 

"I brought him for you", replied MacQueen, tossing out the severed head of the last wolf from under his plaid.

Harting, from whose British Animals Extinct Within Historic Times (1880) this account is drawn, quotes Sir Thomas Dick Lauder, from 1829, giving what he claimed were MacQueen's own words to MacIntosh (though setting the tale -and adding a tad more confusion- in Moy in Inverness-shire):

"As I came through the slochk (i.e., ravine) I foregathered wi' the beast. My long dog there turned him. I buckled wi' him, and dirkit him, and syne whuttled his craig (i.e., cut his throat), and brought awa' his countenance for fear he might come alive again, for they are very precarious creatures."

 Strathglass

According to one local legend the last wolf in Strathglass, by Beauly, was killed close to where St Ignatius' Well is today. This is how James Harting gave the story in 1880, in British Animals Extinct Within Historic Times:

".. a woman of Cre-lebhan, near Strui, on the north side of Strath Glass... had gone to Strui a little before Christmas to borrow a girdle (a thick, circular plate of iron, with an iron loop handle at one side for lifting, and used for baking bread). Having procured it, and being on her way home, she sat down upon an old carn to rest and gossip with a neighbour, when suddenly a scraping of stones and rustling of dead leaves were heard, and the head of a Wolf protruded from a crevice at her side. Instead of fleeing in alarm, however, "she dealt him such a blow on the skull with the full swing of her iron discus, that it brained him on the stone which served for his emerging head."

The story was still told in the Highlands for decades after. The Inverness storyteller Andrew Mackintosh, whose family comes from Strathglass, has a version of it from his Granny. Alec Williamson, the great Traveller storyteller from Edderton in Sutherland,  also knows the legend, though in his version the woman sits down on the cairn, not to gossip, but, as Alec discreetly puts it, "to perform a natural function."

St Ignatius' Well.

The Dionard Wolf

This one is full of controversy for various reasons. Graham Bruce, the Head Teacher of Durness Primary School in the far north of Sutherland, and a great enthusiast for old tales, gave me the newspaper clipping which I reproduce below. It's from The Northern Times and its From Our Old Files section, of September 2004. The publication date of the original piece was 26th September, 1929:

"Standing midway between Brora and Helmsdale is a stone on which there is an inscription in effect that here, between 1690 and 1700, the last wolf in Sutherland was killed. From the following excerpt from an article to a Northern paper by a gentleman of veracity, it would appear that a wolf was seen in Sutherland as late as 1888.

"The author of the article, who was the guest of a shooting tenant in Sutherland, went out on the hill one day alone. During the afternoon a thick mist came down, which resulted in his losing his way. Night coming on, he decided to put up in a cave which he accidentally came across in the valley of Dionard. He made a fire and fell asleep.

"'I awoke with a great start and looked at my watch. It was one o'clock in the morning, and the weather had cleared. The moon appeared and the stars shone with a flickering and a frosty lustre like great diamonds on the black corsage of night. The musty odour had become most intense, and as my sleepy eyes threw off their shattered torpor, I saw with a shiver of apprehension a pair of sunken baleful looking eyes regarding me steadily and stealthily across the dying embers of the fire.

"'I slipped a couple of cartridges into my gun, and as I did so I heard a low painful whine. I could now make out a white form like a huge dog lying not more than three feet from me. Its head rested on its paws and so far from showing any signs of hostility, it seemed to exhibit symptoms of friendliness. Its coat was a kind of silver-grey in colour and was thick and curly, but the face showed signs of great age.

"'I stood up with my gun at my shoulder, but the beast did not move, and I could not find it in my heart to shoot; instead I threw it a ham sandwich. It nosed wearily, but did not attempt to eat it, so I tried it with a gorgonzola one, which it rejected with some evidence of repulsion. It then rose, and I saw to my unbounded astonishment that I was faced by a great silver-grey female wolf. She whined again, but kept her distance, and I then saw that in her eyes brooded a look of unutterable loneliness and misery.

"'A female wolf, and the last wolf had been killed in Sutherland between 1690 and 1700. I could have gained lasting glory by shooting her, but my hand was stayed. It was I who had invaded her poor little dwelling, and she had shared it with me without hostility. She should suffer no harm from me. Her ancestors had wandered here when Scotland was joined to Greenland, and had shared these wan wastes with the majestic elk and the ivory-tusked boar; fighting and suffering and dying in those vast oak and pine forests, the remains of which are still visible in the great mosses which abound all over Sutherland."

Some stated that it could not have been a wolf as they were extinct. Some claimed the man only saw a shepherd's dog. The man who was there and who saw the animal in question had no doubt that it was a wolf. Was it a wolf?

In The Red Paper 2022 Vol. 1 Canids I take a look at wolves in Britain and prove, based on reports at the time in books and newspapers/magazines that wild roaming wolves were found in Britain from Willesden (then a village), Wales to Scotland. Survivors of our Old native island species?  Sadly, I doubt it. Wolves were kept in private menageries large and small and even in travelling shows. Escapes were not uncommon -all were, obviously, 'recaptured'. My book looks at these histories in far more detail and so when you read about the "last" wolf or anything killed check to make sure it was not a regional extinction rather than national.