Wolves and storytelling come to Paulina Springs

“Wolf, eat me. End my miserable life,” begs Akiko, heroine of an ancient Japanese tale. But the wolf explains that his kind do not eat human beings. Instead, the wolf gives Akiko eyelashes she can wear to see the truth about people.

Akiko’s story was one of several relayed by celebrated storyteller Susan Strauss at the Wolf Welcome Committee’s event on Saturday at Paulina Springs Books. An audience of over 40 attendees listened intently to Strauss and author Rosanne Parry, who wrote the New York Times bestseller “A Wolf Called Wander” and other popular books for middle readers.

Strauss talked of her experiences watching wolves hunt together in Yellowstone National Park.

“There was kind of a telepathy” between the wolves, she said.

Indigenous people of Europe admired wolves, she suggested, told stories about human children raised by she-wolves, and gave their children wolf-oriented names to suggest nobility, stamina, and strength.

Strauss told the Norse myth of Sól and Máni, the goddess and god of the sun and moon. These deities drive their chariots across the sky because they are chased by Sköll and Hati, the wolves of Gullveig. Without them, there would be no movement, no day and night.