The Wolf of Gysinge was a

man-eating A man-eater is an animal that preys on humans as a pattern of hunting behavior. This does not include the scavenging of corpses, a single attack born of opportunity or desperate hunger, or the incidental eating of a human that the animal has kil ...

wolf The wolf (''Canis lupus''; : wolves), also known as the gray wolf or grey wolf, is a large canine native to Eurasia and North America. More than thirty subspecies of ''Canis lupus'' have been recognized, and gray wolves, as popularly u ...

which, in three months, attacked and killed many children in Gysinge near central

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...

in the early 1820s.

Attacks

During a three-month period between December 30, 1820, and March 27, 1821, the wolf attacked 31 people, which resulted in a total of 12 fatalities, most of whom were partially consumed by the wolf. The attacks occurred near Gysinge (within present-day

Sandviken Municipality Sandviken Municipality (''Sandvikens kommun'') is a municipality in Gävleborg County, in east central Sweden. The seat is the town A town is a human settlement. Towns are generally larger than villages and smaller than cities, though the c ...

) in

Uppland Uppland () is a historical province or ' on the eastern coast of Sweden, just north of Stockholm, the capital. It borders Södermanland, Västmanland and Gästrikland. It is also bounded by lake Mälaren and the Baltic Sea. On the small uninhab ...

, near the border of

Dalarna Dalarna () is a '' landskap'' (historical province) in central Sweden. English exonyms for it are Dalecarlia () and the Dales. Dalarna adjoins Härjedalen, Hälsingland, Gästrikland, Västmanland and Värmland Värmland () also known a ...

and

Gästrikland Gästrikland () is a historical province or ''landskap'' on the eastern coast of Sweden. It borders Uppland, Västmanland, Dalarna, Hälsingland and the Gulf of Bothnia. Gästrikland is the southernmost of the Norrland provinces. Other forms of ...

in central

. With the exception of one 19-year-old woman, all victims of fatal attacks were children between the ages of three and a half and 15; in addition, the 15 injured victims were mostly children, except for one 18-year-old male.

Wolf

The wolf was killed on March 27, 1821. Historical accounts indicate that before becoming a man-eater, the wolf was captured as a pup in 1817, and kept in captivity for several years before escaping. In captivity, wolves tend to lose their natural shyness of humans and thus attack more frequently after escape from captivity.

Dramatisation

The incident was dramatised in the

BBC Two BBC Two is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It covers a wide range of subject matter, with a remit "to broadcast programmes of depth and substance" in contrast to the more mainstream an ...

TV series '' Manhunters'' in the final episode, "The Man-Eating Wolves of Gysinge", which aired on 16 December 2005.IMDb
"The Man-Eating Wolves of Gysinge"
/ref> The episode took artistic liberty in portraying the number of wolves involved in the attacks, showing two animals instead of one. The man-eating wolves were portrayed by

Czechoslovakian Wolfdog The Czechoslovakian Wolfdog ( cz, Československý vlčák, sk, Československý vlčiak, german: Tschechoslowakischer Wolfhund) is a wolf-dog breed that began as an experiment conducted in Czechoslovakia in 1955. After initially breeding ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gysinge Deaths due to wolf attacks Man-eaters Individual wolves Individual animals in Sweden Individual wild animals 1820 in Sweden 1821 in Sweden

Attacks

Wolf

Dramatisation

See also

References