I suppose we should discuss the many dogs of the Folk early, as I know my dear readers and dogs, and many of you are fully likely to run up to any dog you see calling it a ‘good boy’, which may not be wise with all the fae dogs you will find on your adventures.
We will take two weeks to consider dogs - I know this will delight some of you! However, be warned that the dogs we are looking at today are on the whole more friendly than those of next week…
Below you will find, for each type of dog, some information about where you might find it, how to identify it by appearance and behaviour, whether it is dangerous and how to protect yourself if so. We shall end with two stories showing different sides of the black dogs.
black dogs
There are many stories of black dogs found across the British Isles, Ireland and beyond. Black dogs are usually described as large and shaggy in appearance, the size of a calf, with fiery eyes. While it is almost impossible to tell them apart simply from appearance, the black dogs should be distinguished from the shapeshifters that may occasionally take the form of a dog. They should also be held apart from the Cu Sith, which is dark green and less sinister, although of a similar size. Stories do distinguish on occasion between the black dogs that are a portent or even cause of death, and the guardian black dogs.
Adventurers are advised to be exceptionally careful when confronted with any large black dog alone at night. In particular, they should avoid speaking to or touching the dog, and to always treat it with caution and respect.
Guardian Black Dogs
Usually big black dogs are either a warning or a cause of death, but guardian dogs are different, guiding travellers, sometimes seeing them to their destination then vanishing, only to reappear to see them home.
Usually, to touch a black dog will mean dire trouble for a human, but in one story a man became lost on the cliff tops near his house when the sea mists came up suddenly and so thickly that he could hardly see his own hands before his face. Feeling around he touched shaggy fur and thought his dog must have come to find him from home where he had left it. He held on to the dog’s fur and the dog led him to his house. It was only as he approached the door and heard barking inside that he realised it had not been his dog he was holding on to. He looked down at the dog guiding him and it slowly grew larger and larger then faded away.
Another story tells of a group of fishermen who waited in Peel Harbour for their skipper to take them out for a night of fishing. All night they waited and yet the skipper never arrived. In the early morning, a sudden gale sprang up in which the boat might well have been lost had they put to sea. When the crew finally found the skipper, he said that his way to them had been blocked all night, no matter which path he took, by a large black dog.
fairy dogs
Domesticated fairy dogs may be divided into two types - the Cu Sith, and the hunting hounds.
Cu Sith
The Cu Sith are found in the highlands of Scotland and as a rule were kept by the Folk inside a Brugh, which is like a borough or fairy community rather than a single household, where they acted as watch dogs. But they might also roam free in the world above, where they will be found roaming the highlands at night and sheltering in clefts in the rocks during the day.
The Cu Sith can be identified by sight, sound, and by the tracks they leave. In appearance they are very large (the size of a yearling bullock), shaggy, and - strikingly - dark green in colour. The observant adventurer might also notice that their tails coil up on their backs or are sometimes plaited. When hunting, the Cu Sith do not bark continuously but will give three loud bays, so loud in fact that they have been heard by ships out to sea. Their large paws leave prints the size of a man's footprints in the mud or snow, but with the exception of those three cries, they move silently.
The Cu Sith should be distinguished from other dogs of the Folk by their colour, although their great size is not unique to them. The Cu Sith might be taken out by the fairy women as they roamed the hills looking for human cattle to milk or steal away.
Any human would be wise to avoid a confrontation with a Cu Sith, but as a general rule they are uninterested in attacking humans and some stories have even suggested they may be driven off by a pack of human dogs if they take too great an interest in human dwellings.
Hounds of the Hill
The hounds of the hill are the hunting dogs of the Folk, mostly to be found in England, especially Somerset. They live in the hollow hills and come out to accompany the fairy hunts. They are large, like most dogs of the Folk (described by one source as the size of a calf), and have a rough white coat and red ears.
The hounds of the hill are not known to be dangerous to humans. Their main purpose is to hunt for fairy deer, rather than the more sinister hunts for human souls that are the province of the wilder packs, as we shall discuss next week.
A good turn may be rewarded by the hounds. A young labourer once treated the sore paws of a hound of the hill, using wet dock leaves. Later, the boy was going through a haunted wood where he was attacked by a spectral goat, and the same hound appeared and rescued him.
A Cu Sith of the Folk.
story time
the moddey dhoo
The Moddey Dhoo (moor tha do) or the Mauthe Doog of Peel Castle was the best known of the Black Dogs on the Isle of Man. Each night, the great, shaggy black dog would come silently into the guardroom of the castle and stretch out before the fire. No one knew where he came from or who he belonged to, and they did not dare speak to him and always travelled in pairs when he was near.
One evening one of the guards, heavily in his cups, taunted his companions for their fear and mocked the dog. He dared the dog to follow him and rushed out of the room alone. The dog slowly stood up, stretched out, and padded out of the room after the man. A short while later the remaining guards heard a terrible scream and the drunken man staggered back into the room pale, shivering and speechless. He took to his bed in silent horror and three days later he died, while the dog was never seen at the castle again.
the black guardian dog
One dark night Johnnie Greenwood had to ride through woods a mile long to reach a house he had need to visit. At the entrance to the wood, he was joined by a large black dog that padded along quietly beside his horse. He did not know where it had come from, but it never left him while he was in the wood, and even when it grew so dark between the trees that he could not see it, still he could hear its faint pattering beside him. When he emerged from the wood into the moonlit night, the dog had disappeared.
Johnnie paid his visit, and then had to return through the wood. Again, at the entrance the dog joined him and accompanied him through the wood. Johnnie said not a word to the dog, and never touched it, and as he emerged it was no longer by his side.
Years later, two condemned prisoners in York gaol told the chaplain that they had intended to rob and murder Johnnie Greenwood that night in the dark woods, but when they saw the large dog with him they were afraid and stayed hidden in the trees.