THE LEGENDS AND FOLKTALES

Dando was a parson, but he cared more about hunting than his parishioners’ souls. One Sunday he was out hunting with his friends when they ran out of drink in their hip flasks. The estate upon which they were hunting was called ‘Earth’, and so Dando joked, “Go to hell for it if you can’t find any on ‘Earth’!”

At that moment a dark stranger appeared and offered Dando a swig from his flask – and very tasty it was. “Do the gods drink this excellent stuff?”, Dando asked. “Devils do,” said the stranger. He then began to help himself to some of Dando’s game and made to ride off with it. “I’ll go to hell if I have to, but I’ll get them back!” shouted the drunken priest, and he ran at the stranger. The fiend scooped him up onto his big black horse and galloped away; fiery sparks leapt up from the horse’s heels and all the hounds followed him.

Dando was never seen on Earth again, but his dogs are often heard – and seen. And if you’re down in Devon, and surrounded by a pack of black dogs with red eyes, howling unspeakably, your best hope is to pray.

The history: Robert Hunt collected this story in Popular Romances of Western England, published in 1881 (online via www.sacred-texts.com). In his introduction Hunt tells how he had been collecting odd tales from his Cornish childhood – and he remarks that now the railways are making mass tourism in the West Country popular, his guide to its folklore will allow visitors to ‘repopulate’ the countryside with the vanished legendary figures of the past.