"Dog-Headed Tartars." Our story-tellers almost invariably use the epithet "dog-headed" when speaking of their old enemies, the Tartars. Medieval travellers, who wrote in Latin, speak of the Great Khan of Tartary as "Magnus Canis." Cf. The Travels of Friar Odoric, in Cathay and the way Thither (Hakluyt Soc. 1866). The learned editor remarks (p. 128, note): "I am not sure that a faithful version should not render 'Magnus Canis' as the 'Great Dog,' for in most copies the word is regularly declined 'Canis,' 'Cani,' 'Canem,' as if he were really a bow-wow. According to Ludolf, an old German translation of Mandeville does introduce the mighty prince as 'Der grosse Hund.'"
The irruption into Hungary of the Tartars under Batu Khan, in the thirteenth century, and their frightful slaughter and terrible devastations are sufficiently known, and need not further be enlarged upon here.
With regard to dog-headed people (cf. the Kynokephaloi of Ktesias), such people are often mentioned in ancient travels; thus, Odoric of Pordenone says: "[L'Isola che si chiama] Nichovera ... nella quale tutti gli nomini [h]anno il capo a modo d'un cane." From an old Italian MS. text in the Bibl. Palatina at Florence, printed in Cathay and the Way Thither, p. 51.
The womankind of dog-headed people are always described as beautiful. Cf. the travels of Friar Jordanus, Odoric of Pordenone, Ibn Batuta. Cf. also the lovely wife of old Doghead in "Prince Mirkó" in this volume; and Gubernatis, vol. i. Preface, xix.
Page [120]. "Born with a caul."
In Holderness and North Lincolnshire, a caul is said to prevent the owner from drowning. I have heard others say, that you can tell by its condition what the state of its owner's (the one who was born with it) health is, even if he (or she) is in a distant land. So long as it keeps as it is he is well, but if it "snerkles up" he is dead.[55] It is commonly called a "sillyhood" in the North.
Cf. Henderson, pp. 22, 23. Aubrey, Remaines of Gentilisme, p. 113.
Gregor, Folk-Lore of North-East of Scotland, p. 25.
Grimm, i. Hans in Luck. "I must have been born with a caul," p. 329.
Napier, Folk-Lore, p. 32.