Read this article and then think about it for a moment. Go on… I can wait.
Singleton Argus 2 Mar 1911 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article79999187
Did you read about the poor newlyweds and their bridal party being attacked on what was supposed to be such a happy day? What an awful thing to happen! Lucky that two of the party survived the carnage and made it back to report such a terrible thing.
Or perhaps, like me, you read with suspicion about 22 horse sledges being attacked by wolves with only two of the group surviving.
If the unfortunates in this story followed the old standard of men bravely fighting in order for the women and children to race to safety, how is it the women and children were eaten first? Lucky these blokes weren’t on the Titanic!
Not only that, if I was one of the two survivors I would have worded my statement a little more carefully than saying ‘the bridegroom refused to allow the bride to be sacrificed to the furious wolves, they were both thrown to the pack, torn to pieces, and eaten’.
Thrown to the pack? I might have put in a bit differently. ‘We tried desperately to save them, but the wolves dragged them from our grasp’ might sound a little less like ‘we kicked them out and ran for our lives’.
Sounds a bit like the women and children were thrown to the wolves to allow the men to escape, with the groom being the only one who objected to his missus being sacrificed!
I wonder what relation the remaining two were to the deceased? If this was a police television drama I would expect the investigation to find they were the only remaining beneficiaries after such a large family disaster.
Buried words and Bushwa. 
Yes, their wording does make it sound bad for the survivors. Sounds like a case for Sherlock Holmes! Or maybe Johnny Dollar, since he’s the one who usually takes on those insurance fraud schemes.
We are so suspicious, aren’t we! I think we have all seen too many crime shows, we just see the holes in every story. Obviously back then they were happy to believe the tale. Ahh… more innocent times 🙂
Hang on a minute while I try to do some sums! 22 sledges right? That would mean at least 1 horse per sledge = 22 horses. If we allow 2 people per sledge that’s 44 bodies of various sizes. Now, assuming that the horses were not ponies, each horse would be the equivalent of 2.5 people. That makes 55. So [44 + 55] -2 = 97!
I’ve run out of fingers and toes but surely it would take about 1.5 wolves to take down a person? If I’m right that makes 148.5 wolves. That’s almost a small army? And no-one back then thought this was just a tad strange?
My first though was about how many wolves it would take to bring a 22 sledge train to a standstill. Surely once the back one or two sledges had been overrun and the people and horses were being eaten there would have been time for the others to get a good bit of headway and escape.
Even if the back ten were overtaken (say 20 horses and 20 to 30 people) surely the wolves would stop running and start chewing. I wonder what on earth really happened out there!?
This is another one for you my dear Sherlock 😀 Must say though I suspect foul play! [Please note I resisted the ‘fowl’ ]
Cluck *hides head under wing* 🙂
roflmao!!!!!! You and Daud are like peas in a pod! Love it!
[and apologies for all the exclamation marks]
Hm…I’ve never heard of a wolf pack that large.
Metan did this actually happen or is this something akin to yellow-journalism popular around that time? If it did happen what really happened to the wedding party? Bandits paid off by the two ‘survivors’? Oh the speculations!
It does sound a bit extreme, doesn’t it. A quick google tells me that the largest recorded wolf pack was around 37, so say we even went up to around 50 wolves I still don’t believe they could take on so many people!
Bandits sound a likely possibility to me, I would love to find another article about it. I will keep looking but doubt there will be a follow-up. 😦 I will continue to be suspicious of the survivors though!
OK. I’m not going to get a commendation from the RSPCA for this, but might it not have made more sense to have sacrificed say four horses=two sleighs (?) and just loaded the extra people on other sleighs? Seems there’s something a tad fishy in the state of Denmark and it ain’t Tuna sandwiches,to quote the Bard.
Just wait until your wife finds out you would sacrifice the nags in order to save yourself!
I’m totally with you, I would have been happy to send neddy off to get eaten if it gave me a headstart. There is no mention of the fate of the horses in this tale, I wonder if they were what the bandits took as plunder for their murderous efforts? Part of the deal with the ‘survivors’?
Unbelievable! The men ran away letting their wives and children back to be eaten?!?! But imagine having to die on the day you are getting married!! Omg!! And as per the math above… surely something fishy about this whole thing…
After reading it I just had to put it up to see if everyone else saw it the same way, I am glad that I am not the only suspicious minded one around!
At least the groom objected to the bride being sacrificed, it sounds like the rest just cut and run! (or were killed en masse by bandits, I’m still wavering on my preference 🙂 )
I wonder if police followed up or just accepted the events. Very suspicious. At first I thought it was a joke – how could that possibly happen?
I don’t think it could possibly happen in the way the story is told in this article.
Sometimes I suspect that these news articles are completely made up, back then it is not like the general public had any way of fact checking (bless you, interweb).
I expect this story was based on a true event with the amount of victims and wolves being greatly exaggerated.
Of course, all these years later nothing has changed in the media has it? They still don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story!
Haha. No, you’re right there. And this specious idea of having to balance one report with another shows the opposite side, and contributes to a lot of misinformation.
Fixed? 🙂
I hate that the news pretty much says whatever they want. Retracting it later doesn’t matter if the thing everyone remembers is the first incorrect bit. Often it seems they use the speak first, apologize later tactic just to push the buttons of the public and sell papers. (Stating the obvious there, aren’t I?!)
Of course, I love that the old papers wrote whatever they wanted, if they hadn’t I would have nothing to talk about!
“…nothing to talk about.” Fear not Metan, you’ll still be talking and writing when you’re in your 90’s!
Btw you do realise that you are a kind of journalist yourself? We are all putting information out into the digital world but blogs like yours are like investigative journalists who poke around looking for the truth behind the words. I know you don’t see it that way but you are 🙂
Hey! Are you telling me I talk too much!! Well, ok, you’re probably right….. 😉
Actually, I think I am probably less journalistic and more conspiracy theorist! I’m happy to share my mistrust of authority and rarely believe anything I am told without concrete proof, I was probably an annoying child. 😉
“But /why/…?” Oh yes 😀
I’m fascinated by the ‘mistrust of authority’ bit. I’m the same way and I can’t help wondering if that isn’t part of what makes us Australians. I wasn’t even born here yet somehow I’ve ended up with that same personality trait and I see it in so many of my friends. I suspect our convict heritage has informed our culture a lot more than most people acknowledge. It’s there in our anti-heros from the swaggie of Waltzing Matilda through Ned Kelly to Chopper Whatsisname. Not a bad thing if I do say so myself. Maybe we should take ‘Don’t bullshit me!’ as our national motto 🙂
I love this quote;
A few years ago we colonised this place with some of our finest felons, thieves, muggers, alcoholics and prostitutes, a strain of depravity which I believe has contributed greatly to this country’s amazing vigour and enterprise- Ian Wooldridge – English
I really believe that without that convict heritage we would be a very different people. Even if people don’t realize it, those origins have effected every person. It’s funny, because I don’t even like being given authority myself! I’m happy to be in charge because, well, you know, everyone should just do as I tell them, but I will do anything to avoid being /considered/ authority. 🙂
Of course, I am happy to claim my convict heritage and shake my fist at those in charge, and I love your suggestion for a motto!
lmao – yes and yes! I think that’s one reason why we have a small revolving door of candidates from local govt level all the way up to the Feds. No-one sane ever wants any of those jobs. We know that at a gut level. So anyone who does put their hand up must be…well, you know, a bit of a wanker..right? Whereas the man or woman who just gets the job done right with no fuss is a good bloke/sheila 😀
-giggles- we are such inverse snobs and I love it 😀
I love history mysteries. I love it even better when they are solved (like finally finding out the remains of Sir Franklin’s expedition), or locating the Titanic after so many years. Your blog, which I just discovered, poses some interesting questions.
Sometimes we all know there is no mystery, it is just the strange way it was reported. In this case though, I really want there to be a mystery! Thanks for commenting. 🙂
The whole wolf pack-attacking-people event may have been more common than we know. At least, it seems to be an occasional occurrence in Russian literature. I believe there’s a scene in Dr. Zhivago during the Russian Civil War, and I think Gogol has similar incidents, too. Tolstoy may well have had such an event in one or more of his books, as well. I’d imagine things get pretty lean for all creatures during the Russian winter.
I read quite a few articles about this kind of attack (and did a post about one) after this post, looking for some more about it. I think the thing that makes this particular attack stand out if the sheer volume of people involved and the terrible carnage. The heartlessness of the two survivors is something that caught my eye too!
Humans are only at the top of the food chain when they are well-armed. A happy group in the forest are just what a pack of real predators would love to see!