![]() ![]() ![]() Guardians of property and livestock, they also hunted deer, elk, boar, and – as their modern name attests – wolves. ![]() Even beheaded, he hung on.Īs those ancient – and arguably a bit inflated – anecdotes show, these imposing Irish dogs were prized in battle. In 391 AD, the Roman statesman Quintus Aurelius Symmachus wrote a letter of thanks to his brother for the gift of seven Irish hounds, noting that “all Rome viewed them in wonder.” And from two millennia ago comes the story of Ailbé, so famous that two kings vied to own him, one offering “three score hundred milch cows at once and a chariot with two horses and as much again at the end of the year.” When the bidding war escalated into an actual one, Ailbé literally lost his head after attacking one of the king’s chariots and seizing its axle. Over the centuries, they became coveted gifts to emperors and ambassadors, kings and cardinals, often arriving in ancient times in symbolic groups of seven, tied with silver chains. Like many Sighthounds of the time-misted past, ownership of these dogs was reserved for the high born. Some Irish chieftains and warriors even grafted the word cú onto their own names as an honorific, signifying that they were as venerable and loyal as the dogs themselves. There is such a thing as being too good at your job.Īs far back as Roman times, there were accounts of large Greyhound-like dogs in Ireland – called cú faoil in ancient Gaelic – revered for their size and ferocity. ![]()
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