Wolves

Wolves are a recurring measure of danger in the flock’s world, but in these episodes they are chiefly imagined, remembered, or invoked rather than encountered as animals. They first offer the sheep a possible explanation for George Glenn’s death, then become entangled with a lamb’s account of a ghost and Miss Maple’s warning about deception. A gray wolfhound finally makes the fear physical: unlike the sheepdogs that ordinarily drive the flock, it appears to be hunting them. The shifting boundary between story and immediate threat makes Wolves both a predator in the sheep’s understanding and a figure through which they interpret unfamiliar violence.

First Explanations of George’s Death

When the sheep find George lying beside the hay barn with a spade protruding from his body, their first alarm includes the possibility that a wolf is nearby. Miss Maple quickly rejects that explanation. The flock lives on rich pasture, where the midsummer need for hay makes no sense to her, and, more decisively, she argues that even sophisticated Wolves do not kill by driving spades into their victims. Her reasoning separates the fear of a familiar predator from the evidence of an unfamiliar crime: whatever has happened to George, it does not resemble an attack by Wolves.

That distinction helps direct the flock’s investigation toward a human culprit. Sir Ritchfield treats the spade as sufficient proof that George was killed, while Othello points out that the act could only have been done by a human or, in his deliberately extravagant alternative, a very large monkey. Othello’s youth in Dublin Zoo gives him a particular reason to bring unfamiliar animals into conversation, but Maple’s conclusion is practical rather than zoological. George had sought the culprit when a fierce dog took one of the lambs; in return, the flock owes him an inquiry. She describes the killing as predatory conduct, but does not mistake that judgment for proof that a wolf committed it.

Apparitions and Uncertain Evidence

The idea of a Wolf’s ghost emerges through a lamb’s report of a large, shaggy figure that danced. At first the lamb thought the apparition was a Wolf’s ghost; after seeing George, the lamb decided it must have been his. The change depends on the lamb’s interpretation, not on any confirmation that the figure was a wolf. Miss Maple immediately presses on the timing, asking how the lamb could know George was dead when it saw him. The exchange makes the apparition part of the flock’s investigation: a frightening experience becomes possible evidence, but its meaning remains unsettled.

For the sheep, this uncertainty is tied to their belief that smell carries the soul. Maude explains that human beings have poor noses, while Othello reassures the lamb that such a limitation would make a human ghost small rather than frightening. The lamb’s insistence that the figure was enormous complicates that account without resolving what it saw. Wolves therefore belong not only to the flock’s idea of physical danger but also to its attempt to classify what can be sensed, remembered, or mistaken for the dead.

The Wolf as a Warning About Deception

Later, when Miss Maple fears that the flock has stopped taking the investigation seriously, she invokes the story of The wolf in sheep’s clothing. Her warning is not simply that an attacker may be present; it is that the flock may fail to recognize one. She argues that the sheep cannot guard themselves against a wolf they have not identified, especially without a shepherd, and insists that the story must be followed through to its end. In this context, Wolves represent concealed danger: the threat matters precisely because it could resemble one of the flock.

The story also turns Maple’s investigative method into a matter of collective survival. She is willing to continue alone if the others refuse to look for the wolf, but her warning makes clear that failure to investigate is not neutral. The flock must attend to signs and distinguish appearances from identities. Wolves thus give the sheep a narrative model for suspicion, even though the model does not itself identify the murderer.

From Imagined Predator to Immediate Threat

The clearest bodily confrontation comes when a gray wolfhound runs toward the flock near the dolmen. The sheep know the usual experience of being herded: sheepdogs move around them under human direction, and the flock has been driven together and apart many times before. This dog behaves differently. It crouches, does not bark or hesitate, and runs as though the sheep are prey. The familiar unease of being herded becomes genuine fear because the flock reads the wolfhound’s movement as a hunt.

The charge scatters the sheep and disrupts the human gathering. From her rocky ledge, Zora can see that Othello has stayed to face the dog. The wolfhound initially appears to pursue him, but hesitates, loses nerve, brakes, and swerves as Othello approaches. Zora recognizes that Othello is faster, though the dog then crouches with its teeth bared, ready to leap from below. The scene does not turn the animal into a literal wolf: it is a dog, but its manner of attack gives the flock the experience of being hunted for the first time.

Narrative Function

Across these episodes, Wolves mark the limits of what the flock knows. They are a plausible fear that Maple tests against the spade, an explanation a lamb revises after seeing George, and the hidden predator in a story used to urge vigilance. The wolfhound’s charge gives that accumulated language a concrete counterpart while preserving the difference between the animal the sheep fear and the dog they actually face.

The contrast also unsettles the apparent calm of the pasture. Sheepdogs belong to an established human practice of controlling the flock; the wolfhound’s silent approach changes that familiar relation into pursuit. The sheep’s interpretations are shaped by their own senses and stories, yet those interpretations are not merely decorative: they help the flock distinguish a murder from an animal attack, weigh a troubling sight, and recognize when ordinary herding has become something more dangerous.