Wolf. A Cultural History

The new book by the famous French medievalist Michel Pastoureau. With an introductory article and edited by Mikhail Maizels, one of the authors of "Suffering Middle Ages". Illustrated edition. Translated from French by Stanislav Mukhamidzhanov. The wolf is one of the most important images in the cultural history of Europe. The wolf has inhabited human consciousness since ancient times and plays an important role in well-known stories and myths. The Roman she-wolf that nursed Romulus and Remus, Fenrir the wolf, the doom of the Nordic pantheon, hundreds of plots about animal metamorphoses and werewolves are just the tip of this mountain of images.

In the Middle Ages, the image of the wolf changes, fear of it recedes to the background – in bestiaries and a number of fairy tales, it is depicted as absurd, deceived by other animals and constantly pursued by hunters. And only with the arrival of the Modern era does the fear of the wolf return to culture, since then it is not only a foolish livestock hunter but also a villain and devourer.

This book by Michel Pastoureau is dedicated to the analysis of numerous cultural transformations of the image of the wolf, hundreds of plots related to it, and ancient legends about the gluttonous beast.