Blair Collection > Popular tales of the West Highlands > Volume 1

INTRODUCTION. IxXXÌX
Celts, and Saxons, and Normans, and Danes, and
Romans, wlio help to form the English race, are at
home on shore and afloat, whether their steeds are of
flesh and blood, or, as the Gaelic poet says, of brine.
The Celtic race are most at home amongst their cattle
and on the hills, and I beheve it to be strictly in
accordance with the Celtic character to find horses and
chariots playing a part in their national traditions and
poems of all ages.
I do not know enough of our Welsh cousins to be
able to speak of their tastes in this respect ; but I
know that horse racing excites a keen interest in Brit-
tany, though the French navy is chiefly manned by
Breton and Norman sailors, and Breton ballads and
old Welsh romances are full of equestrian adventures,
xlnd all this supports the theory that Celts came from
the east, and came overland ; for horses would be prized
by a wandering race.
So hounds would be prized by the race of hunters
who chased the Caledonian boars as well as the stags ;
and here again tradition is in accordance with proba-
bility, and supported by other testimony. In No. 4
there are mystical dogs ; a hound, Gadhab is one of the
links in No. 8 ; a dog appears in No. 11 ; a dog, who
is an enchanted man, in No. 12 ; there is a phantom
dog in No. 23 ; there was a " spectre hound in j\Ian ;"
and there are similar ghostly dogs in England, and in
many European countries besides.
In 19, 20, 31, 38, and in a great many other tales
which I have in manuscript, the hound plays an im-
portant part. Sometimes he befriends his master, at
other times he appears to have something diabolical
about him ; it seems as if his real honest nature had
overcome a deeply-rooted prejudice, for there is much
which savours of detestation as well as of strong affec-
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