The wolf legends demanded immediate revenge. Groups of colonists entered the forest, killed the predators, and restored their mastery over nature in a day… the legends offered a quick solution: regeneration through violence

To overpower savagery one must lash out savagely. In their stories Euro-American colonists invented and broadcast a vision of wolves as threats to human safety. They then modeled their behavior on the ferocity they perceived in wolves. Thus folklore explains not only why humans destroyed wolves but why they did so with such cruel enthusiasm.

Given humans’ tendency to see themselves as the pivots around which all creatures’ lives spun, the bewildered travelers assumed the wolves were talking to them.

The story of wolf killing illustrates the tenacity of two Euro-American conquering devices—folklore and property. Folklore fueled wolf hatred through rituals and legends codified into motifs and transmitted by word of mouth. Wolf lore survived by being remembered and retold, while property in the form of livestock also traveled across landscapes and lifetimes.