What's not to love about wolves? - Karen Bush
I was brought up with wolves.
I don’t mean that literally of course – I wasn’t that lucky,
and had to make do with the usual dysfunctional family. But I did spend a lot
of time escaping into books from everyday life, and wolves seem to have figured
quite largely in them, either as the main protagonist or as characters playing
important supporting roles.
It started early on with the usual fairy tales: Red Riding Hood of course (I always
considered the pro-bloodsports huntsman who hacks off the unfortunate wolf’s
head to be the real villain of the story) and The Three Little Pigs. Very early on in my school life we were
introduced to tales featuring Uncle Remus’ Brer Wolf, Aesop’s boy who cried
wolf and learned about Romulus and Remus. A bit later I read for myself
Kipling’s Jungle Book, Joan Aiken’s Wolves of Willoughby Chase, and John
Masefield’s Box of Delights – the
phrase “The wolves are running” still sends a delicious thrill of excitement
down my spine.
Wolves didn’t vanish from my life as I got older: they still
kept on popping up everywhere, in Jack London’s Call
of the Wild and White Fang, our
own Susan Price’s Ghost World
sequence (plus others) and for the last twenty odd years in Robin Hobbs’ magnificent Seven
Duchies books featuring Fitz, the Fool and Nighteyes. And you must have been
taking an extended holiday on a distant planet in a galaxy far, far away if you
haven’t heard of the direwolves in GRR Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire (aka Game of Thrones) books …
These are just a few – there are so many more wolves I could
mention, such as Maugrim in The Lion, The
Witch and The Wardrobe, Michelle Paver’s Wolf Brother, Emma Barnes’ Wolfie,
Jean George’s Julie of the Wolves, Rosemary
Sutcliff’s Warrior Scarlet, Tolkien’s
wargs in The Hobbit … well the list
goes on and on. I expect you have your own favourites.
So when I started making needlefelt brooches as a sideline
to writing and teaching, it was probably inevitable that as well as making
hounds and hares I also made wolves. Well, why not? As I said, they’ve been
around all my life in my reading matter, so something was eventually bound to
rub off …
Winter
is coming – have you got your wolf head brooch yet?
Available
in a range of colours with eyes made of semi-precious gemstones including onyx
(black), carnelian (red), mossy agate (green) and red/brown or yellow/brown
tiger eye.
For more details visit my FB page at:
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