Nancy Drew: The White Wolf of Icicle Creek Hints

Do wolves really do what Yanni said?

  • Yanni's story about wolves eating his grandmother is as much a lie as his saying that he "never meant to hurt anyone" with all those explosions. (Yeah, right -- C4 flattens buildings, and he didn't think people would be hurt?)

    People have always been afraid of wolves, who are large intelligent predators with big teeth, but they really aren't that interested in us as food. Wolf attacks are rare, but when they happen they're usually a matter of the wolves defending themselves against us. The story that Yanni tells has been told in Eastern Europe for centuries; there's one version in Willa Cather's book "My Antonia," for example, with a sleigh instead of a motor scooter. It wasn't true then, and it's not true now. It's exciting, though, isn't it?

    For more information about some of the strange myths about wolves, see http://www.wolvesontario.org/wolves/wolves/myths.shtml.