|
WHEN
Caesar and his legions first invaded Britain,
and for ages previous to that event, by far the greater portion of these
Islands was covered with dense forest, widely extending marshes, wild and
inaccessible labyrinths of wood and mountain. In these dark fastnesses
roamed the shaggy Bison, the long-horned Urus, the Bear, the mighty Elk,
the wild Boar and the Wolf; the Reindeer wandered over our Northern
mountains, and the Beaver built its dams and houses in our streams. All
these are gone; but by far the latest to linger was the wolf.
As men multiplied and
cultivation increased, the forests gradually disappeared, and the wolf was
driven ever back to the wilder and remoter districts; hence he lingered
longest in Ireland, and in the vast forests and uninhabited country of the
Scottish Highlands.
Any account of the animals
formerly inhabiting this country and long extinct must, of necessity, be
of the nature of a compilation, the material for which is diffuse,
scattered and not accessible to everyone. The path of the student of
to-day, however, has been made easier by the labours of those who have
preceded him, chief among whom may be mentioned Mr. J. E. Harting, who, in
his volume on Extinct British Animals, has gathered together in
chronological order almost all that is to be found in history and
tradition on the subject. To him I offer my grateful acknowledgment of
indebtedness, as well as to Mr. J. A. Harvie-Brown for the information
summarised in his well-known series of volumes on the
vertebrate Fauna of Scotland. I
have also had the advantage of material
left by my brother, the late Edward R. Alston, some of it hitherto
unpublished.
In earlier days all England
was ravaged by wolves. By the Saxons the month of January was termed 'Wolf
Month,' [Harting, Extinct British Animals.] the stress of winter no
doubt making them bolder and more dangerous. In Wales they were so
numerous, that in order to encourage their destruction King Edgar caused
part of the tribute of the King of Wales to take the form of 300 wolfskins
annually; and the story of Llewellyn, Prince of Wales in the time of King
John, and his dog Gelert who saved the child from the wolf, is a household
word to this day.
To come to Scotland, the
historical notices, stories, and traditions as to wolves are so numerous
that a few examples must suffice :
In 1427, in the
reign of James I. of Scotland, an Act was passed for the destruction of
wolves,' and there were many subsequent Acts for the same purpose. Among
other things the law required: ` ilk baron sall chase and seek the
quhelpes of wolves and gar slay them and sall give to the man that slays
the Woolfe twa shillings.' In James II.'s time the reward is as follows: `
Whatsumever hee bee that slays ane Woolfe sall have sex pennyes.' [Harting,
Extinct British Animals.] Lindsay, in Chronicles of Scotland,
relates that in a hunt in 1528 in Atholl, provided for King James V.
by the Earl of Atholl, ` VVoulff, fox and wild Cattis' together with `
harts and hynds ' were slain.
Again in 1563, in a hunt
organised by the 4th Earl of Atholl for Queen Mary, when 2000 men
were employed, 5 wolves, together with 36o deer, were among the spoils of
the three days' chase.' Holinshed, in his Scotland till 1571, says
that so dangerous were the wolves in the Highlands that it became
necessary to erect refuges for the safety of travellers overtaken by
night, which were termed ` Spittals,' hence probably ` Spittal of Glenshee'
and other places similarly named.[Harting,
Extinct British Animals.] Taylor,
the Water Poet, travelling on foot through Scotland in 1618, says of the
country traversed in going to Braemar, that for long he saw no animals but
'deer, wild horses, wolves, and such-like creatures.' Bellenden, in his
translation of Hector Boece (1536), also notes `wild hors' along With the
`Wolffis' in the Caledonian forests ; and says of the wolves that they
were ` rycht noysum to the tame bestial in all parts of Scotland.' Sir
Robert Gordon," says that the forests then were 'full of reid deer and
roes, Woulffs, foxes, wyld catts, brocks, skyurells, whittrets, weasels,
otters martrixes, hares and fumarts' ; and in 1621 the reward paid in that
county for killing a wolf was, by Statute, £6 13s 4d.; 'Scots' no doubt.
[Genealogical History of the Earldom of Sutherland from its origin to the
year 1630.]
The exact date of the
extinction of the wolf in Scotland is doubtful. The great forests which
had covered so much of the country had dwindled almost to the vanishing
point. The cause of this is an open question, as to which opinions differ
; but it seems that, to some extent at least, forests were destroyed for
the purpose of exterminating the wolves. In Stuart's
Lays of the Deer Forest it is
told how Oliver Cromwell caused great areas of oak and fir woods in
Lochaber to be burnt for this purpose ; and the like measures were carried
out in other localities.
Whether from
considerable change of climate, as some think, or from whatever cause, the
nature of the Caledonian forests appears to have become gradually much
modified. HarvieBrown and Buckley [Fauna of the
Moray Basin.] have this note from the late Lord
Tweedmouth, referring to trees at Strath Glass: ` Sir Roderick Murchison's
theory was that the fir had succeeded the Oak tree here, that the birch
would supplant the fir, and oak would follow the birch, not in our time
but in the future.' Now we find singular confirmation of this theory in
the picturesque wood which fringes Loch Tulla, immediately opposite Lord
Breadalbane's beautiful shooting lodge at the Black Mount. This wood is
marked on the map, and known in the district to this day as the `Doire
daraich' - the oak-grove; yet it consists of magnificent old twisted and
gnarled Scots firs, with a little birch on the outskirts; but not a
vestige of an oak, old or young, is to
be seen. Whether any remains of ancient oaks have been brought to light in
the course of woodcutting, quarrying and other recent excavations there, I
do not know; as to this it would be interesting to learn what the
experience of the Estate Authorities has been.
Pennant cites the
well-known case of Sir Ewen Cameron of Lochiel's wolf in 1680 as 'the
last'; but though possibly true for Lochaber, it was by no means the last
in Scotland. In 1818, at the sale by auction of the London Museum there is
an entry in the catalogue: ` Wolf-a noble animal in a large glass case.
The last wolf killed in Scotland by Sir E. Cameron.'
Of traditions of `last
wolves' there are many; but one or two examples will suffice. In
Sutherland, about 1690-1700, old wolves and cubs were said to have been
killed in three different places, Assynt, Halladale, and Glen Loth. This
last story is well known. A man named Polson, and his two sons, having
found a wolfs den in a cairn, the two lads crept in and found a family of
cubs which they proceeded to kill, the father of the lads remaining
without. To his horror he perceived the furious mother rushing homeward,
attracted by the cries of the cubs. As it dashed past him into the
entrance of the cave, Polson luckily succeeded in seizing it by the tail
and holding it fast, thus darkening the aperture, on which one of the sons
asked what was keeping out the light. ` If the tail breaks you will soon
know that,' said the father, who succeeded, however, in killing the animal
with repeated stabs of his dirk. So Scrope in Days of Deer-stalking.
The name Polson is evidently an English form of ` MacPhail.'
A very persistent popular
tradition gives as the date of the absolute last of the many 'last wolves'
the year 1743;. The hero of the tale was one MacQueen of Poll-a'-Chrocain,
and the locality, the Findhorn country near the Monadhliath range, then a
wild and desolate district. The story is that a message was brought to
MacQueen, a man of gigantic stature and noted for his courage and prowess
as a hunter, that a` large black beast' had killed two children, and
requiring him to join his chief, the MacIntosh of that day, with his dogs
for a great hunt on the following day. In the morning all were at the
gathering place, except MacQueen, whose non-appearance greatly irritated
the Chief; and when at last MacQueen made his appearance he was received
with impatience and remonstrance.
`What is the hurry?' said MacQueen, unfolding his plaid and throwing down
the newly severed head of the wolf at the MacIntosh's feet. 'There it is
for you'; and the tradition further tells how he was rewarded by his Chief
with the grant of the lands of Seann-achan 'for meal to his dogs.
I am indebted to the Rev. A. S.
Macinnes of Glencoe for the following account of how the tradition of the
`last wolf' ran among the Gaelic-speaking inhabitants of that district as
recently as 1908.
'The local tradition is that the
last was killed by Sir Ewen (Eoghan) Cameron of Lochiel at the north end
of Loch Arkaig (Arcaig). The place is called Glac-a'-Mhadaidh (Wolf's
Hollow). Glen Moriston also claims the honour. In this case the honour of
dispatching the lonely one is given to a woman. She had been away with
food to some of her people who were cutting peats or hay, and on the way
home was met by the wolf. She wound the towel in which she had carried the
food round her hand and thrust the knife which she had for cutting the
meat or cheese into the brute's mouth. He attacked her open-mouthed, and
she thrust the knife down his throat, the towel shielding her hand from
his teeth when he closed his jaws.'
The custom, so common in the
Highlands, of interring the dead on islands is said, by constant
tradition, to have prevailed in order that the graves should not be
despoiled by the wolves. Such, for example, is the story of the graveyard
in the island of Handa, and of those on Innishail on Loch Awe, and on the
island of St. Munda on Loch Leven, at Glencoe. With regard to the last,
the writer once asked a native if he knew why an inconvenient island on a
stormy loch was chosen for that purpose, his reply was that it was 'on
account of the tigers.' H e admitted, however, that the 'tiger' had never
been indigenous in these parts, and that the wolf, ` Madadh-galla,'-as he
called it -was doubtless meant. It was formerly the custom in Atholl to
inter the dead in coffins formed of five flag-stones, for the same
purpose.
`Madadh-allaidh,' wild hound, seems
to be the correct Gaelic name for the wolf; in ordinary conversation
usually 'Madadh-galla,' which appears to be merely a euphonic alteration.
' Faol' or ` Faol-chu,' with the same signification, is obsolete,' and 'Mac-tire,' Son of the Earth, is, of course,
poetical.
The wolf has left his record in many placenames North
and South. In the Lowlands those names compounded with 'wolf,' e.g.
`Wolf-cleugh ' (several), `Wolf-lee,' ` Wolfhill' and many others, need no explanation. In Gaelic compound names,
those ending in their English form in ` maddy' or ` vaddie ' doubtless
mean `madadh,' and probably in most cases refer to the wolf; although `
Madadh ' is also used for a hound or dog. Such as Craigmaddy, Ardmaddy,
Toulvaddie, Sronmhadaidh, Meall-a'-mhadaidh, - respectively the craig, the
height, the hole, the nose or point, and the hill,-seem certainly to refer
to the (wild dog.' Names compounded with 'cu' ('con') meaning simply 'dog,' may or may
not refer to the wild animal; but there can be no doubt about ` Gleann-chon-fhiadh,' Glen of the wild dogs; and `Caolas-nan-Con,' the
narrows of the dogs, on the salt-water Loch Leven, may very well refer to
wolves. Achnacone (Achadh-nan-con) the field of dogs, is an example of the
doubtful cases-unless, indeed, there is some tradition as to the origin of
the name.
Doubtless wolves existed in Ireland also in great
numbers ; and the Irish wolf-hound, which was used in their pursuit, was
considered to be of such value that two of them were sent to Queen
Elizabeth as a gift by an Irish Chieftain, together with two horses and
two hawks ; and Sir Francis Walsingham also received in 1585
a `brace of good wolf-dogs, one black and the other white,' from Sir John Perrott, the LordDeputy of Ireland.' There is the same story there of
several 'last wolves,' and the same difficulty in fixing the date of final
extinction. Harting sums up thus :` So far as can now be ascertained, it
appears that the wolf became extinct in England during the reign of Henry
VII.; that it survived in Scotland until
1743; and that
the last of these animals was killed in Ireland, according to Richardson,
in or according to Sir James Emerson Tennent, subsequently to
1766.' But
on Harting's own showing, these two latter dates for Ireland are extremely
doubtful ; and a safer date to assume for the final extinction of the race
in Ireland is 1710, when 'the last presentment for killing wolves was made in
the County of Cork.'
To most of us, a reference to 'Wolves in
Scotland’ naturally suggests
some remote date; but, if the well-accredited tradition of MacQueen of
Poll-a-Chrocain is accepted, there must be many now alive, whose parents
in their youth may well have seen and spoken with the slayer of the ‘Last
wolf in Scotland.’ |
