Barguest

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• Northern England (Yorkshire, Durham, Northumberland) · English

  Barguest

  Barghest · Bahrgeist · Boguest

  Black dogs

  

  Henderson calls the Barguest a presage of death, remembered in the saying "to roar like a Barguest", and accepts Scott's derivation of the name from German bahrgeist, "spirit of the bier". At Glassensikes near Darlington it was said to appear as a headless man or a headless lady, a white cat, a rabbit, a dog or a black dog. Near Leeds, an informant said it came out on the death of any person of local importance, a large black dog "with flaming eyes as big as saucers" followed by all the dogs of the place howling, and that a wound from its paw never healed.

  Earliest written source: William Henderson, Notes on the Folk-Lore of the Northern Counties of England and the Borders, new edition (Folk-Lore Society, 1879), pp. 274-5; the first edition was not checked

  William Henderson, Notes on the Folk-Lore of the Northern Counties (1879)

  Tradition · not evidence