I NOTE with interest Jodi Harrison’s article on wolves (“Wolves could thrive in Scotland ‘behind a fence’”, The Herald, June 13). More than a decade ago I was given a wooden potato masher by two gentleman dismantling a temporary museum collection with which I was involved, in celebration of the United Nations Year of the Potato 2008. They said with a smile it was the masher that killed the last wolf in Scotland. Ten years on I stumbled across the account in a book. Residents on the southern shores of Loch Rannoch, Perthshire, would periodically burn the Blackwood, part of the old Caledonian pine forest to flush out robbers and wolves. The last wolf was particularly fearsome and after attacking some cottagers they started a huge fire in the Blackwood. The wolf escaped by swimming across the loch making for the high ground in the north. Hungrily it searched out food. It picked up strong smells in the wind from the miller’s cottage. It slunk through the open kitchen door.
The miller’s wife was making potato scones. The wolf saw an appetising baby in a cradle, growled and made a lunge for the infant. The woman was quicker, grabbed the nearest weapon to hand – a wooden tattie masher – and killed the wolf instantly. Local praise of such an act of bravery was heaped on the miller’s wife and the local laird out of respect re-named the mill Moulin Vaddie.
Letting things getting feral with the re-introduction of the wolf might not get a great local reception even behind a steel fence and besides there seem to be an abundance of fearsome dogs, albeit with owners, wandering in the woods.
This story must cast doubt on the claim that Sir Ewan Cameron killed the last one in Killiecrankie.
John Marshall,
36 High Road, Auchtermuchty.
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