Welsh folklore, Wirt Sikes
Gwyllgi
The Gwyllgi appears as a great mastiff with a terrible breath and blazing eyes. Sikes places it among spectral animals, while distinguishing it from the sky-running hounds of Annwn. The collection associates it mainly with coastal parishes and regards looking upon it as dangerous. Sikes notes that it is not classed as a death omen in the same way as the spiritual hunting pack.
Also known as Dog of Darkness
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In the sources
Principal account
TraditionalThe Gwyllgi appears as a great mastiff with a terrible breath and blazing eyes. Sikes places it among spectral animals, while distinguishing it from the sky-running hounds of Annwn.
Further detail
TraditionalThe collection associates it mainly with coastal parishes and regards looking upon it as dangerous. Sikes notes that it is not classed as a death omen in the same way as the spiritual hunting pack.
Context & interpretation
The entry concerns Sikes’s classification and description of the Gwyllgi. It does not treat every British black-dog tradition as identical, and the distinction from death omens reflects this particular collection.
Original passages
Source 1
British Goblins
blazing red eyes which shine like fire in the nightOpen this page in the book
Passage & edition details
Location recorded at citation review: Wirt Sikes, British Goblins (1880), active reader leaf 183
Exact passage checked against active scan text and its original-leaf mapping; whitespace and scan line breaks normalised.
- Edition
- IMJ-0044-E001
- Reader page
- IMJ-0044-E001-P0183
- Original scan leaf
- 184
- Recorded leaf number
- 184
- Current Reader position
- 182
- Reader verification
- Source-preserving update confirmed
Source 2
British Goblins
not classed among death-omensOpen this page in the book
Passage & edition details
Location recorded at citation review: Wirt Sikes, British Goblins (1880), active reader leaf 188
Exact passage checked against active scan text and its original-leaf mapping; whitespace and scan line breaks normalised.
- Edition
- IMJ-0044-E001
- Reader page
- IMJ-0044-E001-P0188
- Original scan leaf
- 189
- Recorded leaf number
- 189
- Current Reader position
- 187
- Reader verification
- Source-preserving update confirmed
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