Black Dogs

In Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Hounds of the Baskervilles, he describes a black dog, just like the ones that appear in British legends. “…there stood a foul thing, a great black beast, shaped like a hound, yet larger than any hound that ever mortal eye has rested upon.” It is said, in legend, that if one spied, or spoke to one of these large dogs (the size of a calf or larger) he was bound to die. They are also known to have eyes that shine in the dark. In Scotland, tales of the cu sith, or færie hound was also known to foretell death or illness.