Template:Featured Article/09 2011

A wolf's head cane is a simple walking stick fitted with a metal handle in the shape of a wolf's head. Often times, the handle is forged out of pure silver. In cinema, the wolf's head cane came into popularity in the 1941 Universal Pictures horror film The Wolf Man. The movie's protagonist, Larry Talbot purchased a wolf's head cane from Gwen Conliffe at Conliffe's Antiques in the village of Llanwelly. Talbot had no particular interest in the cane itself and only purchased it as an excuse to flirt with Gwen. In fact, the wealthy aristocrat was quite put out when he found that he had to pay $15.00 for "an old walking stick". The cane became quite useful to Talbot later that evening however when he used it as a weapon to drive off a wolf that had attacked a local girl named Jenny Williams. He found out however that the wolf he had bludgeoned to death was actually a werewolf named Bela and that it was the silver in the handle that had killed him. During the attack, Talbot was bitten by the werewolf and thus, incurred the curse of lycanthropy upon himself. Some time later, Larry's father, Sir John Talbot was forced to use the cane on Larry when he transformed into a werewolf. Read more...