Burning of The Wolf

It was a full moon on Saturday.

Did you hear a wail through Allendale?

Did you count your sheep before you went to sleep?

Or were you one eye open as the flames licked the inky sky in the Market Square?

The Allen Valleys Folk Festival is a yearly affair, and its fantastical finale is the annual Burning of The Wolf, a huge community event where everyone comes together to celebrate the folklore of an old tale around an annually changing bonfire shaped like a wolf.

Expect music, folklore, spoken word, beer and the hot flick of the flames as the wolf is razed to the ground. Crowds assemble to watch the wandering vagrant ignite, but why has this story gathered traction over the years? Must it be fable and not fact? The people of Allendale surely don't have carnivores hanging round their doors?

This is folklore at its finest. A tall tale handed down over the centuries or an embellished exemplum to outline a point...in fact, this tale or tail is specific to Allendale, and if ever there was a story to own, handed down and to be kept alive, it's the story of the Allendale Wolf.

In 1904, a stark cold snap in November led into a December filled with dread as folk in the Allen Valleys became fretful.

Sheep dipped in number. No bodies were found, but farmers grew fearful.

They set about in rotas, keeping watch over their flocks to try and determine the culprit who was culling them. There were rumours of howling, and subsequent reports of a large dog-like creature running amok amidst their stock, until on December 10th 1904, it was confirmed that roaming the moors, uninvited, unimagined, was a wolf of epic proportions.

Almost five feet long and two and a half feet tall, men stood as sentinels to keep guard with flares to fend the supposed beast off. The Hexham Courant ran the headline -

reporting that the loss of livestock in Allendale had become so severe that farmers had taken to housing their stock in the evenings.

A wolf committee was convened, and a £5 reward for its skin was offered by Major Wentworth Henry Canning Beaumont, a Hexham MP.

The people of Allendale remained anxious. Wolves were creatures of the Middle Ages, with the last one seen at Humphrey Head in Cumbria in the 1400s. But where had it come from? Rumours were rife of a Captain Bain of Shotley Bridge, a wealthy chap who owned his own menagerie of animals extraordinaire at Elm Park, a 17th-century estate on the edges of Durham. The zoo consisted of 2000 Goldfish, 4 large Python, French Frogs, Turtles, Tortoises, Birds, Baboon, African and Indian Wild Cats, Civets, 30 Mongoose, Deer, A white Camel, Jackals, Agoutis, Wallabies,Wolf,Wild Boar, Bear and Tropical Birds.

So what happened? Did the postman leave the gate open perhaps? Did it scale its cage and make a dash for some lamb? But if the wolf was his, it had put in some distance. Those mighty paws must have padded nigh on thirty miles to reach the moors on the Allen Valleys. Captain Bain rebuffed the very idea that his wolf would do such a thing, stating his was altogether smaller in stature, and that -

But come on now...how many wolves did it take to eat Granny and Little Red Riding Hood? Just the one, and all the fingers pointed to Shotley Bridge for that one tooooooooo! Surely there weren't twooooooooooo!

Fires were lit, and flares were brandished over that dark December month. The people of Allendale were feisty about their flocks and fearful for their own.

There were sightings and a telltale howl from behind the school, but no one could find the fury fiend.

Then the tail came to an abrupt end. Literally.

Two plate layers were working the line between Hexham and Carlisle when, lo and behold, they came across a beast, sliced in half by the clickety-clack of the train on the track! The wolf was in bits, thrown to the...not the wolves, but the side of the tracks. I'm hoping the men got two pounds and ten shillings each, mind! They buried it in haste and swiftly egged on by the station master at Cumwhitton; they exhumed the canine body and sewed it back together, having pounds and pence in their eyes! Captain Bain was quick to declaim the wolf was not his, stating his was a mere four months in age, and this spliced monster was massive and mature!

So, are the people of this cosy little village able to settle down on dark December nights, or do they still hear a wail through Allendale?

Each year, the town gathers to recant this furry fury with flames and tales to hold his place in history.

Saturday gone was no different, and the Burning of The Wolf is a great fiery crescendo to the Allen Valleys Folk Festival in Northumberland. Artist in residence Mike Duckett ran workshops with schools in Allendale and Whitfield, engaging children and young people in art, exploring the themes of the wayward wolf. And musicians worked with young people at Allendale Youth Ambition, creating soundscapes around local dialect.

The wolf is built by a team of wily wood wizards each year who come up trumps with some other fantastical representation of a different kind of wolf. It's built away from the village and brought in on the Friday afternoon and assembled, ready to go bang the following night!

People came from far and wide to watch this wonder crumble into fire under the night sky. It was a dramatic experience filled with puppeteers, little people, big people, music, stories and crowds with pints in their hands, gathered around the fire, keeping the wolf's legacy alive!