SC - wulfies..

[Radigan Leoncouer]

"N. Sasso" wrote:
> 
> > Not a source, exactly, but it should be noted that most werewolf legends
> > appear to be based on the idea, rightly or wrongly, that wolves _will_
> > attack humans when they're starving. I seem to recall reading something
> > about this in a book, recently written, about the Little Ice Age of the
> > 13th-19th centuries.
> 
> Given the credibility due such sources, one of the legends of St.
> Francis of Assisi is that he convinced a wolf at Gubbio to stop
> attacking the townspeople and their livestock.  As credible an account
> as any in that time frame . . . Recounted by Brother Leo (?) in his
> biographical notes immediately after the death of Francis.
> 
> niccolo difrancesco

Another consideration is that even if what is being noted as the
normality (or lack thereof) of wolves' attacks on humans in period, this
tendency could be seen as either A) abnormal for overall wolf behavior
over the past couple of million years, B) normal or abnormal for an
unusual 600-year period from the mid-middle ages to roughly the onset of
the Industrial Revolution in Europe, or C) unusual in the collective
experience of modern science, say, roughly, since the aforementioned
period to the present.

It does appear, though, that in general, although not without exception,
the weather in Northern Europe was significantly colder for most of the
interim between approximately 1200 C.E. and 1800 C.E., and it's possible
that behavior that we may view as abberant for wolves today might have
been fairly common in that period, if their ecosystem was disrupted.
Certainly there are numerous accounts of ways in which hard winters
changed the lives of humans; why should animal species be any different?

Adamantius
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com