The Wolf Who Cried Wolf

I first heard this story from my grandmother, who heard it from her grandmother. At some point, if we go back far enough, a witch makes an appearance, but whether the story really started with her or before her, I’m not sure. Regardless of its origins, it took place a long, long time ago; at a time when magic was commonplace and bears and wolves roamed the dark woods, eating porridge and little girls in red cloaks.

Lycidas was the alpha wolf of a small pack that patrolled the outskirts of the village of Randel. Lycidas and his ancestors had been there long before Randel, but the growing settlement of the people had pushed the wolves deeper into Keth Forest, decimating their traditional hunting grounds.  

For a few years now the seasons had been particularly harsh. Winter had moved into Randel and chosen to stay, like an unwelcome guest. Many of the spring crops had been bitten by the sharp teeth of late frosts leaving the fruit barrels and hay barns slumped with melancholic abandonment. Heavy summer rains poured sorrow over the sodden fields, drowning vegetables, sickly calves and the anguished bleats of soggy lambs. Even the eggs refused to float. Autumn took the baton from summer and added spices of hail and hoar for additional seasoning, until Winter once more threw its icy cloak around the village. 

In Keth Forest the wolf pack dug rabbits from burrows with increasing desperation and undertook occasional night raids into Randel for the paltry fowl, risking scorched fur and bruised limbs from the wrath of angry villagers. In the unforgiving grip of hunger, people and animals became more gaunt and more fractious.

One evening, Thorin and Jaha were wrestling; a playful tangle of ear bites and tail nips. The pack watched with lidded eyes and aching bones, wrought from famine and fatigue. Thorin sank his teeth deep into Jaha’s flanks and spirited yelps suddenly became snarling growls. The puncture wound dribbled fat, red tears, across the flaxen fur.  Lycidas pounced into the quarrel, pushing his forepaws into Thorin’s neck, pinning him to the damp earth. 

“Save your bite to feed the pack, not to damage it,” Lycidas warned.

Thorin gave a submissive yap and slunk back to the shadows to lick his wounds.

There was a madness bubbling within the pack, driven by callous hunger. Lycidas pressed his nose to the ground, his brow furrowed with the burden of pack’s fate. As he padded softly through the undergrowth he scented a young hare above the icy chill. Lycidas pounced, cascading earth and leaves as he cleaved the ground for a taste of warm flesh. But the hare was already gone, through another subterranean shaft that surfaced upwind, offering the possibility of life for another day. 

The wolf snuffled the black earth, illuminated by a slice of silver moonlight threading through the trees. Digging a little more, he pulled out a small, oddly shaped pot and holding the vessel between his front paws, began to lick the wriggling worm that writhed around the base. Slimy but satisfying. Lycidas startled back as a small puff of smoke formed an ethereal whisper around him. It wreathed and murmured a soft cloud of nothing yet yielded a promise of everything. 

The wisp swirled and settled. A strange form, half-fairy, half-shadow, shimmered in the gentle breeze of night.

“Whilst you may be brave you may also be foolish. So will your wish be wise or rash?”

Lycidas cocked his head.

The wisp swirled, kissing a soft breath across the wolf’s face.

Apparently, there were terms and conditions even back then, and Lycidas was told his request for more wishes was not within warranty. One wish was all he could have.

The canny wolf considered. Maybe he could ask for a dwelling of straw or sticks in which the pack could take shelter from the icy winds and winter snows? Yet, these dwellings could easily be blown down by the huff and puff of a strong wind. Lycidas considered further. Bricks surely would be stronger?  The pack would be protected from the harshest forces of winter and would have a store for food. Food. Food. The pack had no food. What was the point of shelter if there was no food. Without food, the shelter was nothing but a crypt.

 The wish then had to be for an endless supply of food, surely? Lycidas nestled his skinny jaw between his skinny paws and thought some more.  To ask for copious food would strengthen and feed the pack but with no basic instinct of hunger to drive them or hold them together, that would be disastrous. The wolves would become bored, lazy, antagonistic and argumentative. Besides, unlimited food would also attract unwanted attention from other packs in nearby woods, looking for a share of the spoils. Packs that were still driven by basic instinct, not become sluggish by satiated ennui.

So there had to be a compromise. A potential supply of food, but not too much and not too easy. A situation that kept the instincts of the pack but not the desperation. Lycidas looked towards the blinking lanterns of Randel. Perhaps an ally in the camp of the enemy could be useful? With careful planning and close collaboration the pack could have a supply line of fresh meat until the end of this cruel cycle of freeze and storms. 

And so it was that Lycidas found himself transformed into a shepherd boy guarding the flocks of Randel. No-one remembered a time before he was there; for the villagers it seemed he was always there. A part of the fabric of their landscape, stitched into the seams of life. The shepherd seemed a little confused and uneasy however, because he didn’t clearly recall the boy’s arrival and the flocks seemed jittery and skittish when the child strolled amongst them, wielding his crook to trip their ankles.  But most of all the shepherd didn’t like the risk of being caught as he smuggled the occasional lamb down the hillside to the skilful hands of his butcher brother-in-law, and into the mouths of his starving relatives.

Lycidas settled and salivated amongst his new flock and no-one but his faithful deputy Thorin, knew.

Before the metamorphosis, the two wolf pack leaders had discussed the situation.

“We should keep this from the others,” Lycidas advised. “That way you will be providing sufficient meat to keep them from starvation, and they won’t be tempted to attack the flock themselves, which could bring them and me into danger.”

“Of course,” Thorin conceded. “My lips are sealed.”

They agreed that a faint, half-howl discernible only to lupine ears, would be a signal for them to meet at the northern boundary fence. Lycidas would provide the lamb, Thorin would provide the slaughter. The pack would have enough sustenance until the snows melted when the pack could, once again, save themselves.

Lycidas found his human form clumsy and awkward. He hated the upright stance which exposed his most vulnerable organs to the world. He hated having to chew on a flat cake of unleavened cornbread, whilst he drove the most vulnerable lamb to the northern boundary for Thorin to kill. He hated the thought of Thorin and the pack feasting on the supple, tender flesh he had delivered to them, without a bite himself. But most of all he hated the mind-numbing, boring monotony of watching over the stupid, woolly beasts night after night, as the village slept and he chewed and chewed on the tasteless cornbread. His stomach grumbled and his appetite groused.

At first the arrangement had been relatively simple and effective. The shepherd boy would occasionally give a half-howl, herd a lamb to the boundary fence, where Thorin would collect it between his jaws and carry it off to the pack. The following morning would see an extensive search but the missing lamb would never be found, and the boy would be thrashed for being so careless and not watching over the flock as he should. 

Lycidas looked forward to the day the wish was reversed, so he could sink his daggered teeth into the pallid neck of the shepherd. The pack would have to wait. This would be his kill and his alone. Though they would be welcome to the mangy mutton of the shepherd’s flesh once Lycidas was sure that all the life had left the eyes and the only thrashing then would be the jerks and spasms of the shepherd’s final seconds. 

 After three more ‘lost’ lambs and one beating too many, Lycidas determined that a change of tactics was required. He paced the shepherd’s hut on his spindly, shepherd boy legs, huffing and puffing, considering the various options. It was as though the smoke wisp was here again, but without the terms and conditions.

Maybe it was time for the wish to end and for Lycidas to return to the pack? He could certainly do with a decent meal. Yet there would be no decent meal without him continuing in his role as the shepherd boy for a few more months. Perhaps the entire fence of the northern boundary should just be wrecked, and the sheep be ‘encouraged’ towards the forest and ultimately the pack? But that would just provide too much food all at once and Lycidas would probably be beaten to death, by hook or by crook.

Perhaps if the boy raised an alarm that wolves were attacking… But no wolves attacked. If he did that enough times the villagers might stop believing him and the wolves could attack for real. It was worth a try. At least it might deflect another beating. 

Three cold nights went by before the shepherd boy ran down the hillside, a lopsided, two-legged stumble, screaming “wolves” and “help” in a howl that woke the village. Within minutes a snake of torchlight slithered around the village boundary and headed across the hills.  The shepherd assumed the mantle of importance and led the procession, jabbing with his crook towards distance and shadows. The sheep were counted, the locks checked on the chicken barns and the boy was patted on the back for his vigilance. 

A week later the fiery snake circled Randel once more and once more the flame was extinguished without a wolf being sighted. Barns were checked, chickens shushed and the shepherd boy was scrutinised with suspicion. The sheep were counted and all were present, but there were now grumblings amongst the villagers on the way back down the hillside about the reliability of the shepherd boy. The people did not like being wakened from their deep repose for a danger that, it seemed, was not really there. The whines and moans were carried on the breeze to Lycidas, who smiled to himself.  Thorin too heard the chatter and he too snickered. It would not be long now before he could gather the pack and the flock would be theirs.

By the third cry of “Wolf”, the serpent light of inquiry was barely a worm. A few wavering lanterns half-heartedly cast shadows along the Southern fence before the stars reclaimed the night and the people went back to their warm beds. Even the chickens tutted rather than clucked. The shepherd despaired. He railed and raged at the shepherd boy who stared impassively with big, brown, fathomless eyes. Perhaps if the shepherd had been more attentive he would have noticed the boy’s eyes and what big lashes he had. All the better to see you with, especially in the gloom of another rainy night. He might have noticed the sharp blades of teeth that shone in the moonlight. All the better to bite you with. But the shepherd was too angry and stomped down the hillside, his lantern wobbling with the sway of his silly, upright, human gait.

The date was set for four days later. Then the wish would expire and Lycidas could return, victorious to his pack.  

The night was kind. It was raining hard and sideways. Humans struggled with sideways rain as it got into their pointless, front facing eyes and blinded them in liquid fractals, causing them to stagger around comically, bumping into each other whilst swiping their shiny faces with sodden sleeves. 

Lycidas had been amazed at the limitations of human sight and indeed all senses, when he’d first become a shepherd boy. It was like a heavy blanket had been cast over him, dulling every sound, blearing every sight and almost wiping out his sense of smell completely. How on earth had these inferior beings managed to organise themselves so well? Lycidas had plenty of ideas to take back to the pack once his wish expired, which would help the wolves finally take their righteous place at the top of the food chain. He looked forward to sharing his ideas with Thorin. The wolf packs would gather together as one, and the revolution would begin.

At five past midnight, Lycidas ran down the hillside howling cries of attack and wolves. A flicker of a lantern suggested a possible response, but then a drunken yell and the extinguishing of the light marked the period to the night, and the village slept on. Lycidas continued to howl and the village continued to sleep. In the chicken barn, there was barely a cluck.

Lycidas made his way to the northern boundary, funnelling his woolly charges into a cone of compliant panic and worried bleats. He felt lither and more alive than he had for a long time, springing and vaulting over the divots and grassy knolls. He sniffed the air. Even the heaven scent of a young hare could not distract him, though he salivated at the thought of the fresh flesh. The wish was starting to wear off. Lycidas felt his lupine urges becoming stronger and stronger.

Thorin and the pack skulked in the darkness as Lycidas pushed the flock closer and closer to the boundary. Then there was completed pandemonium. The efficiency of an assassin’s assault. The wolves bounded the fence and it became almost too easy. Every wolf found a kill of its own. The bleating panic carried down the hillside but the serpent was too slow, and the lanterns were still being lit as the final wolf carried off its carrion. 

Almost final. Thorin stared at the boy, with the crook and the long lashes. Lycidas winked.

“I’ll be home soon,” he said, as he fell to his knees, his legs already starting to twist and bend back into haunches. 

“No. It’s best you don’t return,” Thorin replied, and sprang at the throat of the boy.

***

The following day the shepherd reported that thirteen sheep and the shepherd boy were missing, and there was one dead wolf by the fence of the northern boundary. The villagers of Randel wept for the boy and the lost mutton. Some thought this meant more punishment to come, but others felt it was a final sign of retribution and the portent of change and new beginnings. 

The local witch wandered in the pastures, dancing her skirts in the breeze and rolling in the frozen grass. She said she had lifted the curse of the village and for a while there was some relief. Five months later, when the spring crops failed again, a noose was tied around her neck and she was strung from the village gibbet.

Meanwhile, in the Forest of Keth, Thorin and the pack raged against the treachery of Lycidas. Thorin told how Lycidas had been living as a lone wolf on the other side of the pasture, abandoning the pack in their time of greatest need, but living in abundance off the people’s livestock. Thorin recalled how it had become his responsibility to carry out daring raids on the flocks of Randel and how he had always brought back a kill, even though it was at great personal risk. Now Lycidas was dead, and Thorin, with heavy heart and a deep sigh (which sounded very much like a huff and a puff) took up his role as the alpha wolf. He bowed his head and, expressing a desire to reflect a while on his grief and responsibilities, he retreated a little way into the forest. 

Thorin padded softly through the undergrowth when suddenly the heaven scent of a young hare blended with the icy chill. He pounced, more from habit than hunger, but the hare was already gone, no doubt through a subterranean shaft that surfaced upwind and away towards the possibility of life for another day.   

As a slice of silver moonlight threaded through the trees, Thorin snuffled around the roots of a tall oak. Digging a little more, he pulled out a small, oddly shaped pot and holding the vessel between his front paws, he licked the gleaming surface. A small puff of smoke formed an ethereal whisper around him.  It wreathed and murmured a soft cloud of nothing yet yielded a promise of everything. 

The wisp swirled and settled. A strange form, half-fairy, half-shadow, shimmered in the gentle breeze of night.

“Whilst you may be brave you may also be foolish. So will your wish be wise or rash?”

“Hello,” said Thorin, “I’ve been expecting you, and I know exactly what I want.”