Dogs in Folk-lore: The Bethgelert Legend.
The famous tale of Bethgelert, the faithful hound which saves the child of his master from the wolf and is killed by mistake, appears all through the folk-tales and was probably derived from India. In the Indian version the dog usually belongs to a Banya or to a Banjâra, who mortgages him to a merchant. The merchant is robbed and the dog discovers the stolen goods. In his gratitude the merchant ties round the neck of the dog a scrap of paper, on which he records that the debt has been satisfied. The dog returns to his original master, who upbraids him for deserting his post, and, without looking at the paper, kills him, only to be overcome by remorse when he learns the honesty of the faithful beast. This famous tale is told at Haidarâbâd, Lucknow, Sîtapur, Mirzapur, and Kashmîr. In its more usual form, as in the Panchatantra and the collection of Somadeva, the mungoose takes the place of the dog and kills the cobra on the baby’s cradle.[55]
Throughout folk-lore the dog is associated with the spirits of the dead, as we have seen to be the case with Syâma, “the black one,” and Sabala or Karvara, the “spotted ones,” the attendants of Yama.[56] Hence the dog is regarded as the guardian of the household, which they protect from evil spirits. According to Aubrey,[57] “all over England a spayed bitch is accounted wholesome in a house; that is to say they have a strong belief that it keeps away evil spirits from haunting of a house.” As in the Odyssey, the two swift hounds of Telemachus bear him company and recognize Athene when she is invisible to others, and the dogs of Virgil howl when the goddess approaches, so the Muhammadans believe that dogs recognize Azraîl, the angel of death, and in Northern India it is supposed that dogs have the power of seeing spirits, and when they see one they howl. In Shakespeare King Henry says:—
“The owl shriek’d at thy birth, an evil sign;
The night-crow cried, aboding luckless time;
Dogs howled and hideous tempests shook down trees.”
Hence in all countries the howling of dogs in the vicinity of a house is an omen of approaching misfortune.
The respect for the dog is well shown in the case of the Bauris of Bengal, who will on no account kill a dog or touch its body, and the water of a tank in which a dog has been drowned cannot be used until an entire rainy season has washed the impurity away. They allege that as they kill cows and most other animals, they deem it right to fix on some beast which should be as sacred to them as the cow to the Brâhman, and they selected the dog because it was a useful animal when alive and not very nice to eat when dead, “a neat reconciliation of the twinges of conscience and cravings of appetite.”[58]
Various omens are in the Panjâb drawn from dogs. When out hunting, if they lie on their backs and roll, as they generally do when they find a tuft of grass or soft ground, it shows that plenty of game will be found. If a dog lies quietly on his back in the house, it is a bad omen, for the superstition runs that the dog is addressing heaven for support, and that some calamity is bound to happen.[59]
We have seen already that some of the Central Indian tribes respect the wild dog. The same is the case in the Hills, where they are known as “God’s hounds,” and no native sportsman will kill them.[60] In one of Grimm’s tales we read that the “Lord God had created all animals, and had chosen out the wolf to be his dog,” and the dogs of Odin were wolves.[61] Another sacred dog in Indian folk-lore is that of the hunter Shambuka. His master threw him into the sacred pool of Uradh in the Himâlaya. Coming out dripping, he shook some of the water on his owner, and such was the virtue of even this partial ablution that on their death both hunter and dog were summoned to the heaven of Siva.[62]
All over Northern India the belief in the curative power of the tongue of the dog widely prevails. In Ireland they say that a dried tongue of a fox will draw out thorns, however deep they be, and an old late Latin verse says:—
In cane bis bina sunt, et lingua medicina
Naris odoratus, amor intiger, atque latratus.[63]
Among Musalmâns the dog is impure. The vessel it drinks from must be washed seven times and scrubbed with earth. The Qurân directs that before a dog is slipped in chase of game, the sportsman should call out, “In the name of God, the great God!” Then all game seized by him becomes lawful food.