I never met any country folk who were scared of nature or afraid to go walking about in it. they respect nature, and don't antagonize it. But they know most animals will avoid them, and they know to avoid the animals that won't.
Having lived in rural and semi-rural areas for almost all of my life, I can say that this is true. Where I live right now we don't have any wolf packs, but we do have the occasional bear, and a good amount of coyotes, foxes, raccoons, and other assorted critters. You'll rarely ever see any of them. They just don't want to bother with us.
Animals in general want to avoid confrontation. Even if there is confrontation, most of it is posturing and trying to scare the other guy off. Why? Because getting hurt as an animal is a BIG DEAL. Wounds get infected. A hurt paw means you can't run. A cracked jaw makes eating difficult, if not impossible. For an animal, fighting is something you do when it's a matter of life and death - because even if you win the fight, you might die in the end anyway.
This means that even predation is problematic. When hunting, the predator is looking for the biggest reward for the least effort and risk - especially risk. Why do wolves, lions, and others go for the young, the old, and the sick? Because those can't fight back as much, and it only takes one good hoof to the head to ruin your day.
DMs who constantly pit the players against wolves and bears and such annoy the heck out of me. Why would the wolves attack a group of humanoids when there's less dangerous game elsewhere?
Bear attacks do happen, but a quick check on wikipedia for fatal bear attacks in North America resulted in 28 deaths - between 2000 and 2010. About 3 a year. Those are only the fatal attacks, but even so, it's pretty clear that this is exceptional behavior. This is especially true when you remove the deaths spurred on by stupid behavior on the part of the human (like feeding wild bears). You can also remove the attacks where a human stumbled across a bear cub or otherwise directly provoked a response. "For the heck of it" attacks are just not common at all.
Same with shark attacks. We have millions of people in the oceans every year - and how many shark attacks do we really have? It's exceptional behavior (though, of course, one can fairly argue that millions of humans in the middle of the ocean instead of the beach would have different results).
And yet, at the same time, wild animal attacks can be useful to show how bad this winter has been, for example. Animals will attack if they feel desperate enough to do so; between certain death and possible death, they're going to go for possible death every time.
I've seen a video of wolves attacking a bear (one of those wildlife documentaries on Discovery), but never in my life have I seen a more lethargic, stringy, starving bunch of wolves. Those guys were desperate. Bear held his ground too; wounded two of the wolves quite badly and the pack withdrew.
I occasionally hear that animals were more dangerous and aggressive back in the medieval era, but I've yet to see any actual good proof of that. Just people saying that it is true.
Adding D&D into the mix, you could just dictate that animals are indeed more aggressive and that's fine, but that should not be the explanation for pure suicidal behavior. Animals shouldn't attack unless they have a good expectation of "winning" - which may simply mean grabbing the halfling and dragging him off into the woods before the rest of the party can do anything about it. Or a backpack, if the creature is a little smarter (or your pack has something nice smelling).
Minimal risk, maximum reward.
For anyone wandering the wilderness, exposure, water, food, and getting lost are far greater concerns than wild animals.