The Magic of Wolves
(Nimue, review)
This fascinating book by Robin Herne explores the roles of wolves in magic, folklore and spirituality. The content draws widely from European and Asian sources, and ventures into ancient Egypt. Robin is explicit that there is too much Native American wolf material for him to do it any kind of justice in a book like this, and that the same is true of African wolf lore. I think it’s really good when authors own their limitations and don’t try to represent material from cultures they don’t have enough insight into.
Having followed Robin’s work for many years, I’m aware of him as a well read and insightful person in matters of Pagan antiquity. This is a thoughtful book that draws on that considerable knowledge-base and presents the material in an engaging, very readable way. It is a very dense text with a lot of insight in it, and it does come thick and fast so I had to take it slowly to try and absorb it all. It’s a funny thing that shorter books are often slower reads for this reason.
I did not know how widespread ideas about werewolves are, nor how far back they went. Robin brings a lot of interesting ideas to this issue of human shapeshifting, and his speculation on the topic is persuasive. There are many different ways in which people from wide ranging periods and cultures have been portrayed as also being wolves, and there’s lots to consider here. While we can never know what authors from the distant past really means when they talked about wold people, it is good to explore the possibilities, and the ways of viewing the world this opens up. There is far more to wolf magic than shapeshifting, and wolves have played many different roles in human stories.
I can very much recommend this book for anyone interested in wolves. If your spiritual practice involves wolves in any way, there is a great deal of value here and the book also provides a solid jumping off point for further reading and exploration. For anyone interested in folklore and prehistory, this is well worth considering as a text.
More on the publisher’s website https://www.collectiveinkbooks.com/moon-books/our-books/magic-wolves
