Short Fiction · Chapter
The Gray Wolf explained
A young English student, caught in a storm on a remote Orkney island, takes shelter in a cave.
What happens
A young English student, caught in a storm on a remote Orkney island, takes shelter in a cave. He is led by a strange, barefoot woman to her mother's hut. The woman's appearance and behavior are unsettling, with glimpses of greed and animalistic traits. During the night, the student witnesses her transformation into a gray wolf, but when he confronts her, she briefly returns to human form and weeps in his arms before fleeing. He escapes across the moor, hearing her mournful wail behind him.
Themes in this chapter
Reality vs. Illusion
The student is repeatedly deceived by appearances: the woman's beauty masks her predatory nature, and the transformation between human and wolf blurs the line between reality and supernatural illusion.
Suffering and Divine Chastening
The wolf-woman's condition—her craving, her disgust at food, her transformation—suggests a cursed or suffering state, possibly as a form of divine punishment or inner torment.
Characters to notice
- Colin
The young English student who seeks shelter and encounters the wolf-woman.
- Watho
The gray-complexioned, barefoot woman who leads the student to her mother's hut and later transforms into a wolf.
- Mrs. Dempster
The old mother who hosts the student, offering fish and shelter.
Key passages
“Eagerly the wanderer spoke. She started at the sound of his voice. He could not see her well, because she was turned towards the darkness of the cave.”
The student spoke eagerly, and the woman was startled by his voice; he could barely see her face as she faced the dark interior of the cave.
Highlights the initial mysterious encounter and the woman's skittishness.
“Her face was very gray in complexion, and very worn, but delicately formed, and smooth-skinned. Her thin nostrils were tremulous as eyelids, and her lips, whose curves were faultless, had no colour to give sign of indwelling blood.”
Her face was pale and weary, yet finely shaped and smooth; her nostrils quivered like eyelids, and her perfectly curved lips were bloodless.
Describes the woman's eerie, almost corpse-like beauty.
“They were fixed upon him with a strange look of greed, amounting to craving, but, as if aware that they belied or betrayed her, she dropped them instantly.”
Her eyes stared at him with a greedy, almost hungry look, but she quickly lowered them as if realizing they revealed too much.
Reveals the predatory nature hidden behind her demure appearance.
“But the creature as she sprung eluded his grasp, and just as he expected to feel her fangs, he found a woman weeping on his bosom, with her arms around his neck.”
As she leaped, she slipped past his hold, and instead of biting him, she turned into a woman crying in his arms.
The climax of the transformation, blending horror with pathos.