Every once in a while you hear of some strange person being sighted. It might be a girl that people call a "wolf girl" or a boy that fits into the same category. There are several cases like this just in this country. The sad thing is that some of these children may just be affected with a condition that causes hair to cover their entire body. Other children that were reported to be wolf children were not covered with hair when found, just dirt. Then there are those rare cases where children are found, they are covered with hair but once they are back in the human world, their body hair falls out.

One instance of what I am talking about occurred in 1858, in India. A British soldier stated that his regiment came upon a boy who had been raised by wolves. This boy was known as the Shajehanpur Wolf Boy. Actually when the boy was found, he was too old to even be called a boy. He was about twenty years of age and described as having short hair that covered his body like fur. He didn't know how to talk and was completely naked. He ate raw meat by gobbling it down, much the same as a hungry animal. When he ran, he ran on all fours. He was captured by an indian who had run him down on horseback. His knees had skin that had become completely hard from traveling on them. Could this person have actually existed? The world is full of many strange things and there are many stories of children being brought up by wolves, especially in barren areas. Who knows if any of them are true?

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Legend of Romulus and Remus

The idea of children being raised by wolves as been with us for some time. The Romans believed that Rome was founded by Romulus and Remus, two boys that were wolf raised. Supposedly Romulus and Remus were twin brothers. They had a God for a father, who was Mars the God of war and a vestal virgin, Rhea Silvia was their mother. Their mother was the daughter of King Numitor. The king was deposed by his brother Amulius and this is how the mother became a vestal virgin. She was made a vestal virgin so she wouldn't have any children that could challenge Amulius for the throne. She did have children however and they were seized, put into a basket and thrown into the river Tiber. Amulius hoped that the boys would drown. So why did he put them in a basket? Oh well this is only a legend. The boys were rescued by a she wolf who raised them. As they got bigger a shepherd found them, his name was Faustulus. He took care of them until they were adults. When they found out who they were, they decided to kill Amulius and put Numitor back on the throne. After they did this, they decided to build their own cities. Remus visited Romulus and jumped over the wall protecting his city and laughed and said that it was very easy to breach the walls. Romulus became so angry he killed his brother and said that he would kill anyone who tried to break into his city. The city was Rome. It is said that he was the first king of Rome in about 753 BC.

Not all children have become wild because of being raised by animals. Unfortunately there are cases where demented parents have locked children away for years causing them to regress to a wild condition. One case that comes to mind is a poor two year old. The child was found in a city in California. She was locked in a room for eleven years. She had been reduced to worse than an animal state. She was never able to exceed the level of a five year old even after being taught for several years after being found.

These wild children are also know as Feral Children. Wikipedia defines Feral Children as a child who has lived isolated from human contact starting from a very young age and who has remained unaware of human behavior and unexposed to language. A feral child is an extremely rare phenomenon, and there are only just over a hundred known cases of which - apart from cases of confined children - all but three are disputed.

There is nothing worse than cruelty to children., such as the case above, but not all stories of Feral children are due to such cruelty. Some are due to a parent being killed or injured and a child being taken away by an animal. The wolf seems to be the favorite animal to cite in such cases but wouldn't you think that a chimp or gorilla or even an orangutan might, under certain circumstances, feel the need to adopt a human child? Well I have just the case for you. The child is called Bello, the Nigerian Chimp Boy. Supposedly this boy was found in 1996 and had been abandoned by his parents in Nigeria. When he was found, he was only two years old. He had lived with chimps for about a year and a half. He was found with a family of chimps. When the boy was first discovered he would walk in a strange bent manner and leap about at night. He would make noises like a chimp.

There is a story about an abandoned baby that was found in Kenya by a dog. The dog carried the baby back to it's own litter of puppies and cared for it, until it was found.

Another dog tale tells about a poor Russian Boy who lived in the streets because he was homeless. He was only six years old but he was well protected by a pack of wild dogs. He had been abandoned. He would beg for food and then give some of it to the dogs, who in turn would protect him. I think this was a very smart little boy. The Police had tried to pick him up but each time they tried the dogs would defend him. The police finally managed to get him by putting food in a restaurant kitchen and when the dogs went in to get it they trapped them in there, separating them from the boy. The boy returned to normalcy and was put into school. He had been able to talk before being abandoned so there was no need to try and teach him language skills.

The idea of feral children may have been the inspiration for the stories about weir wolves. Those creatures that turn into paranormal wolves when the moon is full because they were bitten by a weir wolf themselves. While we know that these creatures don't exist and are just the stuff of nightmares, children raised by wolves might exist, although this has been disputed by many experts. They have put these children in the same category as big foot or the yeti. Is it fair to do this? I think that the chances of finding a child that was raised by an animal, not necessarily a wolf, are much greater than ever finding that so called yeti, what do you think?