wulver
{{Short description|Type of werewolf in Shetland folklore}}
{{See also|Werewolf|Weredog}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
The wulver or wullver is a kind of wolf-like humanoid creature in the folklore of the Shetland Islands of Scotland.{{Cite book|last=Bane|first=Theresa|title=Encyclopedia of Fairies in World Folklore and Mythology |publisher=McFarland |year=2013 |isbn=978-1-4766-1242-3 |pages=346}} In modern times, the origin of the wulver has been disputed.
History
The wulver is said by the Shetland folklorist Jessie Saxby to be benevolent,{{Cite book|last=Allardice|first=Pamela|title=Myths, Gods and Fantasy: A Sourcebook|publisher=Prism Press|year=1990|isbn=1853270520|pages=224}}{{Cite book|last=Briggs|first=Katherine Mary|title=A Dictionary of Fairies: Hobgoblins, Brownies, Bogies, and Other Supernatural Creatures|publisher=Pantheon books, New York|year=1976|isbn=0-394-40918-3|pages=445–446}} although later accounts state that they became violent if provoked.{{Cite book|last=Narváez|first=Peter|title=The Good People: New Fairylore Essays|publisher=Garland Pub|year=1991|isbn=9780824071004|pages=243}} They were generally friendly to locals, however, and were known to share the fish they caught with them.{{Cite news|date=7 July 2016|title=Six ancient myths from the Scottish islands|work=The Scotsman|url=https://www.scotsman.com/whats-on/arts-and-entertainment/six-ancient-myths-scottish-islands-1472666}} They were usually described as looking like furry people with the head of a wolf. Some accounts claim they were never human to begin with.
Saxby, in Shetland Traditional Lore writes:{{Cite book|last=Saxby|first=Jessia|title=Shetland Traditional Lore|publisher=Grant and Murray|year=1932|pages=141}}{{blockquote|text=The Wulver was a creature like a man with a wolf's head. He had short brown hair all over him. His home was a cave dug out of the side of a steep knowe, half-way up a hill. He didn't molest folk if folk didn't molest him. He was fond of catching and eating fish, and had a small rock in the deep water which is known to this day as the "Wulver's Stane". There he would sit fishing sillaks and piltaks for hour after hour. He was reported to have frequently left a few fish on the window-sill of some poor body.|author=|title=|source=}}In previous publications, Saxby spelled the word as "wullver."{{Cite news|last=Saxby|first=Jessie|date=January 11, 1930|title=Trows and Their Kindred, Part II|work=The Shetland Times}}{{Cite journal|last=Saxby|first=Jessie|date=1905|title=Sacred Sites in a Shetland Isle|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Hw-_9nJhsBUC|journal=The Antiquary|volume=41|pages=138}}
Interpretations
After researching folklore traditions gathered primarily from Gaelic areas of Scotland,{{Cite book|last=Black|first=Ronald|title=The Gaelic Otherworld: John Gregorson Campbell's Superstitions of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland and Witchcraft and Second Sight in the Highlands and Islands|year=2005}} an authority on congenital disorders, Susan Schoon Eberly, has speculated that the tale of the wulver may have its basis in humans suffering a medical condition; possibly Hunter syndrome or lycanthropy, she suggests.{{Cite journal|last=Eberly|first=Susan Schoon|date=1988|title=Fairies and the Folklore of Disability: Changelings, Hybrids and the Solitary Fairy |journal=Folklore |volume=99 |issue=1 |pages=58–77|doi=10.1080/0015587X.1988.9716425 |jstor=1259568}} This theoretical basis of wulver lore has been criticised as not useful, or, especially, reliable, particularly given a lack of any surviving detailed description of the wulver; the malleable and shifting nature of oral traditions; and the existence of other, analogous, mythological creatures in many folklore traditions (suggesting that tales of such creatures are likely to spontaneously arise in many places).{{Cite book|last=Schmiesing|first=Ann|title=Disability, Deformity, and Disease in the Grimms' Fairy Tales|publisher=Wanye State University Press|year=2014|isbn=978-0-8143-3841-4|pages=7}}
Others, such as Brian Smith, argue that the wulver is an entirely fictitious creation that was never part of Shetland folklore, contending the creature is solely the creation of Saxby. The proponents of this view argue that Saxby, whether intentionally or in error, misinterpreted the meaning of a name in her sources.{{Cite web|last=Smith|first=Brian|date=18 May 2021|title=The real story behind the Shetland wulver |url=https://www.shetlandmuseumandarchives.org.uk/blog/the-real-story-behind-the-shetland-wulver|website=Shetland Museum Archives}} In this interpretation, Jakob Jakobsen and John Spence had mentioned a hill called Wulvers Hool in their writings, stating that it was named after a fairy. Saxby, not understanding that the word wulver was derived from an old Norse word for fairy, accidentally created the wulver as Shetland folklore, writing about it as if belief in such a creature had always existed.