Doomed, with their impious lord, the flying hart
To chase for ever on aërial grounds.
The Devil and his Dandy-dogs
By some the sound is believed to be the cry of the restless souls of children who have died unbaptized. As a matter of fact it is probably caused by flocks of wild geese or other fowl. The term is found as far back as 1483 in the Catholicon Anglicum: ‘Gabrielle rache, camalion,’ cp. ‘Ratche, hounde, ordorinsecus,’ Prompt. Parv., O.E. ræcc, a dog that hunts by scent. In Cornwall a spectre huntsman and his pack of baying hounds are known as the Devil and his Dandy-dogs. Unlike the Gabriel Ratchets, which fly too high in the air to be visible to mortal eye, the Devil and his Dandy-dogs walk the earth, and may be seen as well as heard. They frequent bleak and dreary moors on tempestuous nights, and woe betide the unlucky wretch who chances to cross their path. A story is told of a poor herdsman who was journeying home across a moor, one windy night, when, above the noise of the storm, he heard behind him the howl of the yelping dogs, and the grim halloa of the hunter. Presently they had so gained on him, that, glancing back, he could see the terrible saucer-eyes, horns, and tail of the hunter, a black form, carrying a long hunting-pole, and the mass of dogs, each snorting fire and uttering frightful yelps. But just as they were about to spring upon him, by a happy inspiration he fell on his knees in prayer, and the foe was rendered powerless. The hell-hounds stood for a moment at bay, howling dismally, and then, led by their master, they drew off and disappeared. These phantom hounds, jet-black, and breathing flames are also known by the name of Heath-hounds; Yeth-hounds (Som. Dev. Cor.), and Wisht-hounds (Dev. Cor.).
To roar like Tregeagle is a Cornish phrase, whereby hangs a tale. One tradition tells that Tregeagle was a steward in the reign of James II, who made himself unpopular by his harshness to the tenantry, and another legend bases his claim to notoriety on his being a Cornish Bluebeard, who married several heiresses for their money, and afterwards murdered them. But whether for cruelty to tenants, or murder of wives, as a punishment for his sins his spirit was doomed to toil for ever at impossible tasks such as weaving sand, and emptying perennial pools with a cockle-shell. When the Devil is so minded he amuses himself by hunting this miserable ghost over the moor with his hell-hounds, at which time Tregeagle is heard to roar and howl in so dreadful a manner that his name has passed into a proverb.
The Seven Whistlers
The Seven Whistlers are mysterious birds, the sound of whose cry is a sign of some great calamity. Miners have been known to refuse to go down the pits the day after hearing it, believing that some accident would befall them if they did so. The superstitions concerning the Seven Whistlers vary in different parts of the country, from Lancashire to Essex and Kent. Wordsworth records of his ancient Dalesman:
He the seven birds hath seen that never part,
Seen the Seven Whistlers on their nightly rounds,