CONCERNING DOGS
SOME very weird superstitions exist in Ireland concerning the howlings
of dogs. It a dog is heard to howl near the house of a sick person, all hope of
his recovery is given up, and the patient himself sinks into despair, knowing
that his doom is sealed. But the Irish are not alone in holding this
superstition. The Egyptians, Hebrews, Greeks, and Romans all looked on
the howling of the dog as ominous. The very word howling may be traced in
the Latin ululu, the Greek holuluzo, the hebrew hululue, and the Irish ulluloo.
In Ireland the cry raised at the funeral ceremony was called the Caoin, or
keen, probably from χυων, a dog. And this doleful lamentation was also
common to other nations of antiquity. The Hebrews, Greeks, amid Romans
had their hired mourners, who, with dishevelled hair and mournful
cadenced hymns, led on the melancholy parade of death. Thus the Trojan
women keened over Hector, the chorus being led by the beautiful Helen
herself.
The howling of the dog was considered by these nations as the first note
of the funeral dirge and the signal that the coming of death was near.
But the origin of the superstition may be traced back to Egypt, where
dogs and dog-faced gods were objects of worship; probably because Sirius,
the Dog-star, appeared precisely before the rising of the Nile, amid thereby
gave the people a mystic and supernatural warning to prepare for the
overflow.
The Romans held that the howling of dogs was a fatal presage of evil,
and it is noted amongst the direful omens that preceded the death of Caesar.
Horace also says that Canidia by her spells and sorceries could bring ghosts
of dogs from hell; and Virgil makes the dog to howl at the approach of
Hecate.
It is remarkable that when dogs see spirits (and they are keenly sensitive
to spirit influence) they never bark, but only growl. The Rabbins say that
"when the Angel of Death enters a city the dogs do howl. But when Elias
appears then the dogs rejoice and are merry." And Rabbi Jehuda the Just
states, that once upon a the when the Angel of Death entered a house the
dog howled and fled; but being presently brought back he lay down in fear
and trembling, and so died.
This strange superstition concerning the howling of dogs, when, as is
supposed, they are conscious of the approach of the Spirit of Death, and see
him though he is shrouded and invisible to human eyes, may be found
pervading the legends of all nations from the earliest period down to the
present the; for it still exists in full force amongst all classes, the educated, as
well as the unlettered peasantry; and to this day the howling of a dog where
a sick person is lying is regarded in Ireland in all grades of society with pale
dismay as a certain sign of approaching death.