They get used interchangeably and they historically meant opposite halves of the same idea.
An amulet is defensive. It keeps something away: harm, illness, bad luck, the attention of things you would rather not attract. It works by warding.
A talisman is the other direction. It is meant to bring something toward the wearer, or to confer a quality they want. It works by attracting.
The same object can be either, depending entirely on what the person wearing it decided it was for. Which tells you the meaning was never in the object.
As an amulet the wolf is a slightly odd choice in European terms, where it spent centuries as the thing you needed protection from.
Elsewhere it is the natural pick. A guardian at the edge of the camp, a family animal that does not abandon its own, an animal that keeps watch. That is a considerably older relationship than the European one, and a better basis for something worn against the skin.
The wolf is drawn rather than modelled. A head seen straight on, built from rows of chevrons running out from a centre line across the brow, the ears and the cheeks, with the eyes as narrow outlined ovals. The muzzle is left smooth and polished so it stands clear and bright against the darkened grooves around it.
Stainless steel, silver tone, so it takes daily wear without tarnishing or polishing.
See our wolf totem article and the wolf jewelry range.
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