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sionnach commented on the word yeth-hounds
Hounds without heads, animated by the spirits of children who died unbaptized. Believed to ramble in the woods in the dead of night, making wailing noises.
October 31, 2008
vanishedone commented on the word yeth-hounds
Wailing with their... exposed windpipes, maybe? Yeth?
October 31, 2008
Gammerstang commented on the word yeth-hounds
...The mysterious lady Frau Bertha is ever attended by troops of unbaptized children, and she takes them with her when the joins the wild huntsman, and sweeps with him and his wild pack across the wintry sky. In North Devon the local name is "Yeth hounds". heath and heathen being both "Yeth" in the North Devon dialect (...) and the belief seems to be that their unbaptized children's spirits, having no admittance into Paradise, unite in a pack of "Heathen" or "Yeth" hounds, and hunt the Evil One to home they ascribe their unhappy condition. These Yeth Hounds or Wisht Hounds were well known in west country folk lore. - The Blessed and the Damned: Sinful Women and Unbaptised Children in Irish Folklore by Anne O'Connor
January 17, 2018