Wolf. A Cultural History

The new book by the famous French medievalist Michel Pasturo. With an introductory article and edited by Mikhail Maizuls, one of the authors of "The Suffering Middle Ages". Illustrated edition. Translated from French by Stanislav Mukhamedzhanov. 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 a significant role in well-known tales and myths. The Roman she-wolf, who suckled Romulus and Remus, the wolf Fenrir, the doom of the Nordic pantheon, hundreds of stories about animal metamorphoses and werewolves — are just the tip of this mountain of images. In the Middle Ages, the image of the wolf changes; the fear of it recedes into the background — in bestiaries and a number of fairy tales, it is depicted as absurd, deceived by other animals, and constantly pursued by hunters. Only with the advent of the Modern era does the fear of the wolf return to culture; since then, it is not only a foolish cattle raider but also a villain and a devourer. This book by Michel Pasturo is dedicated to the analysis of numerous cultural transformations of the image of the wolf, to the hundreds of related plots, and to the ancient legends about the gluttonous beast.