The following comprises our third excerpt from the rather impressively aegis’d On The Wolves Of Rudra – The Terrific, Well-Storied Wolves And Wolf Forms Of The Indo-European Sky Father we had written earlier this year.

The first two excerpts – looking at both Apollo Lykeios and the Wolf That Stalks The Stars – can be found here.

De Natura Lupōrum – The ‘Temple Wolf’, The Custodes of the Holy Ground; The Guardian Typology of the Wolf-Born Lord of the Bow [ III ]

This brings us back to that work of Aelian whom we had mentioned just above. We shall quote the passage in full, for reasons that shall become apparent subsequently:

“[26] G   The neck of a wolf is short and compressed; the animal is thus incapable of turning but always looks straight ahead. And if it wants to look back at any time, it turns its whole body. It has the sharpest sight of any animal, and indeed it can even see at night when there is no moon. Hence the name Lycophos (wolf’s-light, i.e. gloaming) is applied to that season of the night in which the wolf alone has light with which Nature provides him. And I think that Homer gives the name [Il. 7. 433] ‘ twilight of the night,’ to the time during which wolves can see to move about. And they say that the wolf is beloved of the Sun [Helios]; and there are those who assert that the year is called Lycabas in honour of this animal. It is said also that Apollo takes pleasure in the wolf, and the reason which is commonly reported has reached me too. It is this : they say that the god was born after Leto had changed herself into a she-wolf. That is why Homer speaks of ‘ the wolf-born lord of the bow ‘ [Il. 4.101 ] . That is why, as I learn, at Delphi a bronze wolf is set up, in allusion to the birth-pangs of Leto. Others however deny this, maintaining that it was because a wolf gave information that offerings had been stolen from the temple and had been buried by the sacrilegious thieves. For it made its way into the temple and with its mouth pulled one of the priests by his sacred robe and drew him to the spot in which the offerings had been hidden, and then proceeded to dig the spot with its forepaws.”
[A.F.Scholfield Translation, Attalus edition]

We would note the Wolf as ‘beloved of the Sun’ with some interest – as it could pertain to a number of things in our yet-emergent comparative schema. One of which being the Wolf as ‘favoured’ by the Sun, as in the Sky Father; another as in the Wolf as in – well, beloved of the Sun … either in the case of a Male Solar God (i.e. the Sky Father, most likely), or in the case of a Female Solar Goddess (in which case, the Wolf should prove Her Husband). We shall elaborate upon this in due course. Oh, and just briefly – the rendition of “wolf-lord born of the bow” for Apollo is perhaps not quite correct. In fact, as the Murray translation puts it: “the wolf-born god, famed for his bow” should prove better – the actual word being κλυτότοξος (‘Klytotoxos’), with the foreparticle being coterminous with that justly-famed ‘Kleos’ (‘Kleos Aphthiton’ – ‘Undying Glory’ – being the watchword of the Homeric Hero; or Sravas Aksitam if we are being Vedic) and interestingly from the same root that gives us modern English ‘Loud’; ‘Toxon’ we shall perhaps examine at some other point but suffice to say it means ‘Bow’, and may have some relation to an apparently Scythian loanword into Latin to refer to the wood of the Yew (or its manufactured projectiles). In terms of a ‘famous’ Archer – in Vedic perception we need look no further than Sarva. 

We shall also be returning to that detail given about “a bronze wolf is set up [at Delphi], in allusion to the birth-pangs of Leto”, rest assured. 

However what has drawn our attention is this other interpretation which Aelian has supplied to us: 

That of the Wolf Murti being present at the Temple “because a wolf gave information that offerings had been stolen from the temple and had been buried by the sacrilegious thieves. For it made its way into the temple and with its mouth pulled one of the priests by his sacred robe and drew him to the spot in which the offerings had been hidden, and then proceeded to dig the spot with its forepaws.”

This is corroborated in the position provided for us by Pausanias: 

“Near the great altar is a bronze wolf, an offering of the Delphians themselves. They say that a fellow robbed the god of some treasure, and kept himself and the gold hidden at the place on Mount Parnassus where the forest is thickest. As he slept a wolf attacked and killed him, and every day went to the city and howled. When the people began to realize that the matter was not without the direction of heaven, they followed the beast and found the sacred gold. So to the god they dedicated a bronze wolf.”
[X 14, Jones & Ormerod translation] 

As you can see, he details the same incident occurring at the same place, and – to my mind – justly commemorated in the same fashion. Except with one key difference: there it is not that the Wolf has only alerted the authorities as to a theft and the ill-gotten loot’s secreted location – rather, the Wolf has, in fact, dispatched the evildoer himself via the mechanism of tooth and claw. 

As we had said – the Wolf as Guardian. A ‘Temple Wolf’, we might even say (with deference to that Nordic occurrence for ‘Hofgylðir’ but briefly aforementioned above, perhaps, too).

Now … the question becomes – can we substantiate this claim in any way ? 

And, as a matter of fact … we can. In a manner that helpfully further buttresses some of the comparative Indo-European theological linkages of which we had been pursuing driving at earlier.