The Blood Knife

Lt. Frederick Schwatka, who led the search for Franklin’s lost Arctic expedition, was told by his chief Inuit guide that one method of killing wolves was to stick the handle of a blood-covered knife in the snow. “The hungry wolf seeing the protruding upright blade clotted with blood commences to lick it, which results finally in cutting his tongue to shreds.” Although Schwatka had apparently never witnessed a wolf killed in such a way, he thought his guide’s testimony credible.

Frederick Schwatka, “In the Land of the Midnight Sun,” Part VI. Good Company, vol. VII, March-April 1881, 315-6. 

In the following account, the wolf is unable to feel the wounds to its tongue because of the cold, a detail not mentioned in Schwatka’s journal.

The Worcestershire Chronicle, 16 Oct. 1880, p. 3.

 

“How to Catch a Polar Bear,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle [NY], 17 July 1881, p. 4. “Arctic explorers…plant a big knife in the ice with the blade sticking up. They daub the blade with blood, and the bear comes along and licks it and cuts his tongue. It is so cold he doesn’t feel the cut, but, tasting his own blood, continues to lick the knife until his own tongue is all frayed, and he bleeds to death.” 

Frederick Webb Hodge, ed., Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico, Part 2. Smithsonian Institution Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 30. (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1910), 801-2, s.v. “Traps.” An “Indian” wolf trap consisted “of a sharp blade inclosed in frozen fat.”

Frank Thone, “Knowledge of Animals Useful to Eskimo,” Berkeley Daily Gazette [CA], 15 June 1939. “One trick is to smear the blade of a sharp knife with blood, then bury the handle firmly in the snow, leaving only the blade sticking upright. The wolf, scenting blood, comes and licks eagerly. So avid is he that he does not notice he has cut his tongue, and that it is now his own blood he is licking. In the end he bleeds to death.”

 

“World Wonders,” Jackpot Comics #8, Winter 1942. “An Eskimo can cause a wolf to commit suicide…A whalebone knife is placed blade up in the snow. The wolf is attracted to the blood-covered blade and cuts his tongue. The taste of blood excites his appetite and he cuts himself more and more until he finally bleeds to death!”

Paul Harvey, “How Eskimo Kills Wolf,” San Mateo Times [CA], 22 August 1966, p. 22. Harvey’s syndicated column presented this lore as a political parable.  

 

Religious writers have appropriated Harvey’s text, some identifying their source and some not. There are many online examples, ready for use by those in need of a (Freudian) sermon topic.

Michael G. Moriarty, The Perfect 10 (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1999), 149. 

Eskimo Wolf Trap Often Quoted in Sermons (2013), by Singaporean artist Robert Zhao Renhui, consists of a knife stuck in a heap of bicarbonate of soda.

Craig Medred (“'Blood Knife' Tale Fails to Pass Basic Examination,” Anchorage Daily News, 27 January 2008) is skeptical of the legend.