Most people will agree that there is something particularly unpleasant in the idea of a ghostly animal, though…
- Date of account
- Published 1911
- Source
- Stranger Than Fiction: Being Tales from the Byways of Ghosts and Folk-lore
- Reference
- Stranger Than Fiction: Being Tales from the Byways of Ghosts and Folk-lore · selected passage 52
- Rights
- public_domain
- Language
- English
- Record updated
- 2026-08-24
Record summary
Most people will agree that there is something particularly unpleasant in the idea of a ghostly animal, though why it should be so is hard to explain
Published source text
Read the available text below. Archive transcriptions may contain OCR errors; later context is labelled separately. A recorded claim is not a finding that it happened.
Source passage
Source text · mention onlyMost people will agree that there is something particularly unpleasant in the idea of a ghostly animal, though why it should be so is hard to explain. But there is no doubt that the majority of us would prefer encountering a human rather than a four-footed "revenant." The Welsh have a superstition about "hell-hounds," or _c[^w]n ann[^w]n_, as they are called in the Principality. These fearsome creatures are said to hunt the souls of the departed, and generally only their mournful cry can be heard--a sound to make one shudder and tremble. But occasionally a stray hound is seen by some unlucky individual, to whom the sight is sure to bring disaster or death--an old Celtic belief, and most certainly superstition, but it recurs to one's mind in connection with the following story.[5]
Historical context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyThis material belongs to a folklore tradition. Story type, collector, community, transmission and literary editing matter when comparing it with other sources.
Modern context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyLattice compares motifs and reported features without assuming that a traditional being is a biological species or that similar stories document one external cause.
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