wolf-free islands off the coasts...

"Where attacks have been made on man by northern wolves, the animals have almost certainly been suffering from rabies, a disease which not infrequently affects them...

This behavior [i.e., healthy wolves refraining from attacking humans] is the more strange because wolves, although they normally eat carrion only when there is little alternative, readily unearth human corpses and devour them. This is well known from early records in countries such as Scotland, where cemeteries were removed to wolf-free islands off the coasts, and from reliable North American records. It is difficult to account for this behaviour in a predatory animal without entering realms of fantasy."

- from Richard Fiennes' fascinating The Order of Wolves (1976), pg. 19.