dog

dog, dogs. The domesticated canine has played many roles in the Celtic imagination for thirty centuries. The dog is portrayed on the Gundestrup cauldron and is associated with the Gaulish deity Sirona and the early British deity Nodons, worshipped at the Romano-British temple in Lydney Park on the Severn. Dog bones are found in ancient holy wells. The Celts appear to have inherited three associations with the dog from Mediterranean religions: healing, hunting, and death. Humans in different cultures have been impressed by dogs' ability to heal themselves with their saliva. The Gaulish mother-deity Nehalennia is invariably portrayed as accompanied by a dog, suggestive of healing. The association with hunting exists in English as well, of course, usually with the more specific word ‘hound’; but in Celtic languages the function tends to be more heroic. The title Cú- in the name of the greatest of Irish heroes, Cúchulainn [‘hound’ of Culann], may be translated as the more general ‘dog’ as well as ‘hound’. A leader of pre-Claudian Britain, Cunobelinus, is literally ‘The dog/hound of Belinus’. The association with death, also known elsewhere in European tradition (cf. the black dog in Goethe's Faust, 1808), seems to be based on dogs'instincts for carrion. Surviving evidence does not suggest there was ever a Celtic dog-deity as there may have been for the wolf. The dog and the horse are the favourite domestic animals of Celtic fairies.

Few dogs in narratives are given much characterization; they are usually portrayed only as faithful companions to master or mistress, and sometimes as figures of fear. Among the benign Celtic dogs are: Ailbe, Mac Dathó's dog in Scéla Mucce meic Da Thó [The Story of Mac Da Thó's Pig]; Bran and Sceolang, the prime hunting-dogs (and nephews) of Fionn mac Cumhaill, as well as Adhnuall, his alternate; Cabal (Cavall in Tennyson), hound of Arthur; Dabilla, the lapdog of the goddess Boand; Dóelchu, the dog whose dripping blood kills Celtchar mac Uthechair; Drudwyn, hunting-dog of Culhwch; Failinis, hound of Lug Lámfhota; Gelert, the greyhound who saves the prince's baby as told in Bedd Gelert; the unnamed dog of Cadan who helps him kill the beast; the unnamed lapdog of the Fenian hero Cairill; the unnamed fairy dog with a white ring around its neck that roams near Galway.

The more fearful dogs include Coinchenn, the monstrous dog-headed wife of Morgán; cù s'th, the black dog of the Highlands; cwˆn annwfn, the Welsh hell-hounds; gwyllgi, the Welsh spectral mastiff; moddey dhoo and mauthe doog, the great black dogs of the Isle of Man; the dogs of Crom Dubh, Coinn Iotair [Hounds of Rage] and Saidhthe Suaraighe [Bitch of Evil]; the unnamed large black dog thought to haunt the Sliab Mis [Slieve Mish] in Co. Kerry; ki du, the Breton black dog who accompanies reincarnation; and the unnamed but great menacing black dogs thought to come forth from the quagmire in Brittany known as the Youdic. OIr. cú, madrad; ModIr. cú, madra; ScG cù, madadh, balgaire; Manx moddey, coo; W ci; Corn. ky; Bret. ki. See also ANIMALS.

Bibliography

See F. Jenkins , ‘The Role of the Dog in Romano-Gaulish Religion’, Collection Latomus, 16 (1957), 60–76.