Wisht Hound

Devon and especially Dartmoor boast some of the most beloved wild spaces in England.
And where there is wildness, there are legends.
Even in somewhere like England, where few natural predators remain large enough to threaten human life, legends survive.
British wolves were driven to extinction in the 17th century. Bears died out sometime shortly after the Bronze Age.

But no one has ever let the facts get in the way of a good story.

Since the tradition of the Wild Hunt, which has Anglo-Saxon/Germanic roots dating back more than 1,000 years, there have been stories of Black Dogs. Huge spectral hounds that lurk in lonely places and terrify the unwary.

One of these stories grew from travellers in Wistman’s Wood, an ancient temperate rainforest on Dartmoor, Devon. It’s one of the few remaining areas of wilderness not shaped by humankind. Travel to Dartmoor before sunrise, or after the sun sets, or whenever clouds swirl so low they wrap the landscape like a cloak, and landmarks begin to hide. To merge into each other and vanish from sight. Ancient, mossy oaks seem to move and change their shapes. The ground beneath your feet looks the same in every direction.
It’s easy to lose your bearings.

This is Wistman’s Wood.
An eerie and unnatural place.
In the local dialect, “wistman” is another word for “devil”, and comes from the word wist or wisht, meaning “eerie” or “uncanny.”
And that is exactly how they feel.

But imagine for a moment: you’re someone living in Devon in the 17th century. You mistimed your journey, so you have to cross the wilds of Dartmoor after the sun set. The mist wraps thick around you. You hold your lantern high, but it’s nearly impossible to make out anything clearly.
Your heart starts to beat faster as panic rises. You wonder if you’re lost. Your sense of reality seems less firm than it did a moment ago.
The cloud and the moss seem to swallow all sound.
And then, in this silent world you’re stumbling through - dark shapes rush past. Larger than any dog you’ve seen. Faster, too.

You don’t know it, but you just saw one of the last wolf packs in Britain.

But by the time you get home, they’ve become something else.
Black Dogs.
Wisht Hounds.
Massive. Jet black. Eyes that glow red or fiery in the gloom - though some say they are headless.

Hard to say which would be more unsettling.

But either way, it certainly captures the imagination. A story like that would spread. A cautionary tale either against the risk of drinking too much and making a fool of yourself, or to scare yourself and others silly.
And, as ever, a good way to keep children clear of dangerous places during the most dangerous times to be there.

So the legends spread.
Until Wisht Hound practically infested the moors, long after the wolves were gone.

Just a theory, of course, but legends usually come from somewhere. Why not there?
Even today, the stories claim that during the day, they rest in Wistman’s Wood, waiting.
Waiting for their master to release them.

And then, at dusk, when a person can no longer entirely trust their own senses, a strange Hunt Master sets them loose to run the moors, running down lone travellers.
The old stories say the Hunt Master is particularly fond of unbaptised children. His hounds, unfortunately, share his taste.

Recorded by Richard Jones in Myths and Legends of Britain and Ireland, one old taletells of a farmer riding home from Widcombe Fair when a pack of hounds raced past him, urged on by a dark Huntsman. The story claims the farmer cried out, asking how the hunt had gone in the hope he might share some of the game.

And that’s where the story takes a gruesome twist.

It’s said the Huntsman threw a bundle to the farmer and said with a malefic, booming voice, “Take that.”
The farmer was terrified, but also excited by the gift. He hurried home to unwrap the bundle - and when he did, he found the body of his own infant son.

There are many variations of the story. In some, the farmer was so drunk that he had to be tied to his horse. In others, the son was unbaptised.
The variations likely reflect the teller’s bias, as most legends do, but the tale is chilling regardless.

Of course, it’s unlikely there was ever such a thing as a wisht hound - or the dark Hunt Master leading them, for that matter - but that hardly matters.

Because if you’re walking on the Moor after sunset, when the crowds are gone, the clouds have fallen to earth, and the nature of the moor has become something far more sinister—

You’ll believe in wisht hounds, too.