Hounds of the Wild Hunt

Disclaimer

This is NOT a page about Wiccans or neo-pagans, and I do not advocate the belief that Wiccans are Satan-worshippers and/or baby-killers. I am well aware that they are not. This is a starting point for historical research into the great witch craze of 1100-1700 AD. And please, don't ask me for spells.

The Gabriel Hounds or Ratchets

The Wild Hunt was often accompanied by the baying of hounds. Sometimes other sounds could be misinterpreted.

The cries and wing-beats of migrating birds, particularly geese, are sometimes taken to be the baying of superterrestrial spirits, a pack of spectral hounds, sometimes called 'sky yelpers', sometimes the Gabriel Ratchets ['Ratchet' is an archaic term for a hound that hunts by scent]. They were known as the 'Gabriel Hounds' in Lancashire, and were said to be monstrous dogs with human heads who travelled high up in the air.... Sometimes they seem to hover over a house, and this foretells death or misfortune to the inmates (K. Briggs 183).

Cwn Annwn

The Cwn Annwn (koon anoon) were Welsh hell hounds. Although they didn't do actual destruction, they were death portents. "Near at hand they sound like a cry of small beagles, but in the distance their voice is full of wild lamentation. Sometimes a voice sounds among the pack like the cry of an enormous bloodhound, deep and hollow" (K. Briggs 85).

The Devil's Dandy Dogs

This Cornish permutation of the Wild Hunt is the most dangerous of all diabolical packs. This devil hunts human souls. The following story is from Popular Romances of the West of England:

A poor herdsman was journeying homeward across the moors one windy night, when he heard at a distance among the Tors the baying of hounds, which he soon recognized as the dismal chorus of the dandy-dogs. It was three or four miles to his house; and very much alarmed, he hurried onward as fast as the treacherous nature of the soil and the uncertainty of the path would allow; but, alas! the melancholy yelping of the hounds, and the dismal holloa of the hunter came nearer and nearer. After a considerable run, they had so gained upon him, that on looking back,--oh horror! he could distinctly see hunter and dogs. The former was terrible to look at, and had the usual complement of saucer-eyes, horns, and tail, accorded by common consent to the legendary devil. He was black, of course, and carried in his hand a long hunting-pole. The dogs, a numerous pack, blackened the small patch of moor that was visible; each snorting fire, and uttering a yelp of indescribably frightful tone. No cottage, rock, or tree was near to give the herdman shelter, and nothing apparently remained to him but to abandon himself to their fury, when a happy though suddenly flashed upon him and suggested a resource. Just as they were about to rush upon him, he fell on his knees in prayer. There was strange power in the holy words he uttered; for immediately, as if resistance had been offered, the hell-hounds stood at bay, howling more dismally than ever, and the hunter shouted, 'Bo Shrove,' which (says my informant) means in the old language, 'The boy prays,' at which they all drew off on some other pursuit and disappeared (K. Briggs 98).

Lost?

Hounds of the Wild Hunt is copyright 1998 to Shantell Powell.