Romulus was the legendary founder of Rome, the sons of Mars by Rhea Silvia, daughter of Numitor, King Alba Longa. He was exposed in the wild at birth with his twin brother Remus, By his great-uncle Amulis, who had usurped the throne. The twins were suckled by a wolf and brought up by a peasant named Faustulus, and his wife Acca Larentia. Romulus founded Rome in 753 B.C. but quarrelled with Remus, whom he slew. In 716 he was carried to heaven in a chariot of Mars and worshiped as the God Quirinus.

It is generally accepted that today that in most historical legends there is some grain of truth.. However, it is not possible...that the twin babies could have indeed have been suckled by a she-wolf. What, then, is the truth of the story, or is it pure myth? The most probable suggestion made is that Faustulus and Acca Larentia were wolf-cult people and regarded as wolves or werewolves by their neighbours.

Wolf Giants of the North

The hugest, fiercest, most powerful wolves of legend are found in Nordic mythology. Odin, chief of the gods, was accompanied into battle by two wolves named Geri and Freki. To see a wolf and raven together was a good omen for success in war; thus Wolfram (wolfhrafen, "wolf-raven") was a great warrior’s name. The Norns, of Germanic fates, also kept wolves as companions. And one of the Nordic giantesses, Hyrrokin, rides astride an enormous grey wolf with a snake for a bridle; Barry Lopez relates that when she "arrived at the funeral of Balder, four Berserker struggled to hold her wolf in check...
The wolf that looms largest in Norse legend is the giant Fenris-wolf, a terrible agent of destruction. Fenris was the offspring of Loki, the trickster god, and a giantess; his siblings were the dread
Midgard serpent and Hel, goddess of the underworld. Odin raised Fenris at Asgard, the god’s stronghold, to be a loyal companion, but as he grew even larger and fiercer, the gods feared him. The only one who could approach was Tyr, who fed him each day. (Up to this point the story strangely echoes the experience of some people who have tried to raise wolves.)

Odin determined to bind Fenris to the earth to prevent trouble, but Fenris snapped the strongest chains ever forged. Finally the gods sent for a magic rope spun by dwarves, thin as spider’s silk and with all the earth’s mysteries: mountain roots, the sounds of fish breathing and cats walking, the spittle of birds, and so on. Fenris was suspicious and insisted that Tyr place his hand in his mouth while the rope was fitted ; when the wolf realized he was trapped, he closed his jaws and severed Tyr's hand.

Fenris was fated to remain bound until doomsday, precipitated when Loki brought about the death of Balder, the best of the gods. At Götterdämmerung, the powers of evil were unleashed: the sun and the moon were engulfed by wolf-giants whose jaws dripped blood. The Midgard serpent filled the air and waters with venom, and Fenris was freed from his bonds to join the climatic battle against the gods, his great mouth flashing fire. He swallowed Odin, and was himself slain by Odin’s son Vidar. In the end the world was consumed by fire - but from its ashes a new world and a new race of human beings arose.

Today the Fenris story may suggest something about the dangers of trying to cage and restrain the earth’s wild forces. Also it’s useful to recall that older cultures did not segregate the powers of creation and destruction, but often incarnated them in one being. In any event, the old Norsemen clearly honoured the wolf’s strength and sagacity, as shown by the names they gave their kings: Beowulf (war-wolf), Berthewolf, Wulfstan Wulfred, and Ceowulf, among others.

Throughout the ages, even in the prehistoric world, whilst his howling athwart the stillness of nature and night struck fear into the heart of primaeval man crouching far back in the dark retreat of some cold rough cave; further sown the centuries when he was known as the marauder of the shepherd’s grazing flocks, not sparing to attack child and maid or even the solitary wayfarer by the wood; nearer yet, what time the red glare of his eyes across the drear plain of unflecked snow in the cold steely moon has paralyzed some lone leash of travellers, and the plunging horses made with terror break into a frenzied gallop,.... all down the vistas of the dateless centuries the wolf has ever been the inevitable, remorseless enemy of man, and , few animals indeed has the world’s fancy, nay, the experience and dearly purchased knowledge of our forefathers, invested and surrounded with so many gloomy superstitions and beliefs that are horribly real and untrue.

The distinctive features of the wolf are an unbridled cruelty, bestial ferocity, and ravening hunger. His strength, his cunning his speed were regarded as abnormal, almost eerie qualities, he had something of the demon, He is the symbol of Night and Winter, of Stress and Storm, the dark and mysterious harbinger of Death.

There is an old story about a wolf in Gubbio, Italy, involving Saint Francis. The wolf had been threatening the villagers and Saint Francis was trying to get the animals to desist. He and the wolf met one day outside the city walls and made the following agreement, witnessed by a notary: the residents of Gubbio would feed the wolf and let him wander at will through the town and the wolf, for his part, would never harm man nor beast there.

Beneath the popular, anecdotal appeal of this story is a common allegory: the bestial uncontrolled nature of the wolf is transformed by sanctity, and by extension those identified with the wolf--thieves, heretics, and outlaws--are redeemed by Saint Francis’s all-embracing compassion and courtesy.

Medieval men believed that what they saw in wolves reflection of their own bestial nature; man’s longing to make peace with the beast in himself is what makes this tale of the Wolf of Gubbio one of the more poignant stories of the Middle Ages. To have compassion for the wolf, whom man saw as enslaved by the same base drives as himself, was to yearn for self-forgiveness.

In "The Wolves of Cernogratz," a nouveau-riche baron and his wife unintentionally hire an elderly survivor of the noble family as a governess , whose castle they have acquired. The old lady speaks out at dinner ridicules an old legend about wolves in the woods. Europe’s aristocracy reserved the thought that a wolf’s howl was reserved for one of noble birth.

"It is not when anyone dies in the castle that the howling is heard. It was when one of the Cernogratz family died here that the wolves came from far and near and howled at the edge of the forest just before the death hour. There were only a couple of wolves that had their lairs in this part of the forest, but a such a time the keepers say there would be scores of them, gliding about in the shadows and howling in chorus, and the dogs of the village and all the farms would bay and howl in fear and anger at the wolf chorus, and as the soul of the dying one left its body a tree would crash down in the park. That is what happened when a Cernogratz died in his family castle. But for a stranger dying here, of course no wolf would howl and no tree would fall. Oh, no."