EP 18: Hellhounds in Mythology & Folklore

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What Is a Hellhound?

Hellhounds are most commonly described as large, black dogs—often the size of mastiffs or even horses—with glowing red eyes. They are typically nocturnal and appear in places that exist between worlds: crossroads, cemeteries, the edges of towns, lonely roads, or wilderness paths. These creatures are rarely simple monsters. Instead, they occupy a liminal role, acting as guardians, omens, guides, or punishers depending on the tradition.

The episode emphasizes that Hellhounds are not always purely evil. Like dogs themselves, they embody a dual nature: loyal and protective on one hand, feral and terrifying on the other. This ambiguity places Hellhounds squarely in the realm of liminal beings—creatures that exist between life and death, safety and danger, the known and the unknown.

Liminal Spaces, Crossroads, and the Underworld

A recurring theme in Hellhound lore is their connection to thresholds. In mythology, thresholds are powerful places: three-way crossroads, graveyards, forest paths, and borders between civilizations and wilderness. The episode connects Hellhounds to deities such as Hecate, who is strongly associated with crossroads and boundary spaces, and whose symbolism often includes dogs.

Perhaps the most famous Hellhound-like figure is Cerberus, the three-headed dog who guards the entrance to the Greek underworld. Cerberus is not malicious without cause; his role is to keep the dead from escaping and the living from entering. This guardian role appears again and again in Hellhound stories worldwide, reinforcing the idea that these dogs enforce cosmic boundaries rather than simply terrorizing humans.

Ancient Roots: From Anubis to the Wild Hunt

The episode traces Hellhound imagery back to some of the earliest recorded civilizations. In ancient Egypt, Anubis—often depicted with a jackal or dog's head—guides souls through the afterlife and oversees judgment of the dead. Like later Hellhounds, Anubis is both fearsome and necessary, a psychopomp rather than a villain.

European folklore introduces spectral dogs in tales of the Wild Hunt, a supernatural procession often accompanied by ghostly hounds racing across the night sky or countryside. Welsh legends describe dogs whose eye color reflects their intent, while Norse mythology includes Garm, a monstrous hound destined to break free during Ragnarök. Across cultures, these dogs signal moments of transition, catastrophe, or judgment.

Hellhounds as Omens of Death

In many regional traditions, encountering a Hellhound is a bad omen. Scottish and English black dog legends frequently claim that seeing one cross your path foretells death—either your own or that of someone close to you. These stories reinforce the Hellhound's role as a messenger from the liminal realm, briefly entering the human world to signal an approaching end.

One of the most famous accounts discussed in the episode involves the Black Shuck of Suffolk, England. In 1577, during a violent storm, a spectral black dog allegedly burst into a church, killing two people and leaving scorched claw marks in the doors. Reports of Black Shuck sightings continue into the twentieth century, suggesting that Hellhound legends are not confined to ancient history.

Deals with the Devil and Chasing Hellhounds

Hellhounds also appear prominently in stories involving the devil and bargains made at crossroads. Blues legends surrounding figures like Robert Johnson and Tommy Johnson describe Hellhounds as enforcers sent to reclaim souls after forbidden deals. In this context, Hellhounds become the devil's agents, relentlessly pursuing those who try to escape the consequences of their choices.

These tales blend moral lessons with supernatural fear. The Hellhound is not just a monster but a reminder of accountability, appearing when someone has crossed a line they were never meant to cross.

Helpful Hounds and Moral Lessons

Not all Hellhounds are hostile. The episode highlights lesser-known traditions in which spectral dogs protect travelers, guide drunk wanderers home safely, or guard cemeteries as benevolent sentinels known as graveyard grims. In some regions, a black dog buried in a churchyard was believed to protect both the dead and the living.

Other stories use Hellhound-like creatures to enforce social behavior. Legends of vampire dogs that prey on intoxicated night wanderers serve as warnings against excess, while contrasting myths describe dogs that safeguard the vulnerable. These variations underline the moral flexibility of Hellhound folklore.

Hellhounds in Pop Culture

The episode also connects ancient Hellhound imagery to modern pop culture. From the terror dogs in Ghostbusters to recurring black dog motifs in horror and fantasy, Hellhounds remain a powerful symbol. Their enduring presence suggests that the fear of crossing unseen boundaries—and of what guards those boundaries—remains deeply embedded in human psychology.

Why Hellhounds Still Matter

Hellhounds endure because they represent something fundamental: the tension between safety and danger, civilization and wilderness, life and death. As humanity's earliest animal companions, dogs naturally became symbols of protection and threat. Hellhounds magnify this duality into something mythic, embodying both our trust in dogs and our fear of what lurks beyond the firelight.

As explored in this episode of the Wondering Monsters Podcast, Hellhounds are not merely monsters to be feared. They are guardians of cosmic order, messengers of transition, and reflections of humanity's oldest relationships with animals and the unknown.

Links from the Show

• The Dave Benson Show
• Crossroads, Spirits, and Dangerous Deals
• The History of the Boogeyman
• The Legend of the Headless Horseman and Sleepy Hollow
• Mothman and a Horrific Bridge Collapse
• Why are Graveyards SO Scary?
• What are Liminal Spaces and Why Do They Feel So Weird?

Watch & Listen to the Full Episode

Enjoy where the conversations of silly meet strange at the Wondering Monsters Podcast.

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Licensing Information

• Title: Entry of the Gladiators
• Composer: Julius Fučík
• Library of Congress (Public Domain)
• Podcast theme song version edited/arranged/mixed by Dan Swift

Unless indicated, images appear in their original form.

Images were generated using AI from MyNinja.ai, NightCafe, lenso.ai, Gemini, or ChatGPT

Transcription

*Transcription was automatically generated and may contain errors.

(Music)

WDG: It's black and furry with red eyes. Rofer? Yeah, I guess that's better. (Laughter) It's, yes. Hellhounds. Hellhounds. Hellhounds. So, so, so, uh, let's, let's we talk from here, do we talk about crossroads. We sort of touched on this when we talked about, uh, hectae. Her companion or symbol is often, like, associated with a dog. Probably largely because she's underworld, you know, and, um, and the dogs, like a lot of these things, it's like, specifically like hellhounds or basically devilish dogs or whatever, you know, ghost dogs maybe better. They tend to be associated with elemental space travel. Like, you know, they kind of go between worlds. They can be good and bad, demonic and sometimes helpful, those are dogs.

Baba: Yeah, exactly. (Laughter)

WDG: Having dealing with a puppy right now, I can tell you that's the case. At one point, they love you the next, they're, uh, not doing what they want to do and biting you and so, yeah.

Baba: Sometimes they're looking at you and being like, I ain't gonna take you to the crossroads.

WDG: Yeah. So, with hectae and three-way crossroads and dogs wandering in these in between spaces. Yeah. Hellhounds as a, like just as an archetype seems to be like, they're usually like black, red eyes. They usually appear at night and they often appear in these like in between spaces. Sometimes like cemeteries, sometimes crossroad type situations or edges of town, you know, lurking in the shadows, you know, kind of thing. And they can, um, so, but then like, so probably the most famous of them, I've been saying probably like service, the three-headed dog that's supposed to guard the underworld again, like these, you know, hellhounds are largely associated with like the underworld. Sometimes that underworld isn't like the, like hell, it's just another realm where the dead are, like, you know, like Hades or, um, I forget what the Welsh version of this is, the same thing. It's like, it's not a bad place, you know, it's like the years that there's, um, you know, but like, so, uh, service love keeps the, you know, dead in the underworld and keeps the living from coming into the underworld. It's like a guardian of the space, which hellhounds also can be sort of guardians of these, like, you know, like dogs would be like guardians of these spaces that are in between to keep the people out from the in between spaces, you know, or to, you know, guard like hidden knowledge of probably like at least the oldest in recorded, because obviously these things stem cross-culturally all around the world. There's always a variation of it, just like when we talked about like the boogeyman or things like that, it's got this like archetypal thing. And, uh, but the oldest in like recording that we know of that would be like, probably like Anubis, you know, in his dog form, also leading and helping people, you know, to get to the afterlife, you know, weighing their heart against the feather, you know, that kind of thing. So there's like, so it's like, so seemingly this, like the dog can either be there to, to enforce some kind of thing and bring you into like, you know, the underworld or keep you out or be a companion to lead you to a place like you, uh, you know, need to go. So, yeah, so the, um, it's, uh, yeah, it's like, it's interesting that like, probably because like so much of like, you know, dogs being the earliest animal companion that we have, they do, you know, for most of human existence, they do live in between this kind of world. They're a wild animal that we've turned into a non-wild animal and they, they're on the hunts. They were there, like, they, they are, they're guardians of like your space, you know, and protectors, but they're also, you know, can be roving packs of wild and violent dogs in the wilderness. And they, you know, so there's definitely this kind of like, you know, they, they, they, I think so that this occupies that thing. Um, other things, hellhounds can be like with association with like cemetery and stuff, stuff, guardians, it can be like, uh, portents of like death, you know, like if you see like, I think the Scottish version of this, like, if you see the dog, it's like, it means it crosses your path. It means you're going to die, you know, it's like, like death is coming for you. So it's like, so basically like, again, they're coming out of this liminal space to tell you like your time's, time's up, you know. Yeah, so it's, it's a, but, uh, kind of, um, yeah, like it's, but, but it's weird. It does seem to be like a lot of them all have like these kind of similar to the Mothman, this glowing red eyes, like this thing going into our, who's sort of ghost rules slash liminal space rules. The hellhound kind of occupies both because it's like, sometimes it's the, he's there at the guardian between the liminal space to keep you out or to help you in. And sometimes it's like, he's like, it's only out at night, you know, like, like the daylight, you know, gets rid of them, you know, it's like, they, like, you know, they're like getting, you know, like they can't, they tend to occupy certain boundaries and barriers, you know, so it's similar to a kind of like the headless horsemen. They have a sort of regional, you know, like, like, and time based, uh, situation. So yeah, that's a,

Baba: the other week we're talking about, um, Robert Johnson, he's got the hellhounds song and kind of like being chased by these dogs. Sometimes it's associated with like, basically you, you sold your soul and now you're trying to get away. Devil's sending his boys after you. Tommy Johnson, um, is probably the guy, he cultivated like this sinister, uh, persona, like the Marilyn Manson, before Marilyn Manson, of having sold his soul to the devil, uh, to boost his appearance. Now he actually, his, uh, his popularity, he actually wound up outliving, uh, Robert Johnson. Uh, he lived until he was in like his eighties or something like that. Robert Johnson was 27.

WDG: The famous, no one came for his soul, at least not for a while, I guess.

Baba: Yeah.

Baba: You know, maybe it's, maybe it's easier to get away with it. If you could just, uh, throw off the scent or something, you know, uh, the old red herring, um, the red herring, um, speaking of tangents, red herring is a way of

WDG: trying to distract you from what is actually going on.

Baba: Red herring is a way of throwing off someone off your trail by, it was like a hunting trick for like throwing off, I guess, rival hunters dogs by throwing a fish to throw them off so you could get whatever you're going after. But, uh, yeah, red herring and the guy that almost always was accused of doing it in the Scooby-Doo tales. Scooby-Doo kids.

Danny C: Um, I'll interject real quick. We were in, um, San Diego over the summer. We were the one hotel we were staying at. We were killing time in the morning before checkout and, uh, the kids happened to stumble across MythBusters. Great show, respect. Um, and they were doing the one where if you were on the run, what can you do to evade a dog that's chasing you from the authorities, essentially. And I don't remember what the outcome was, but they tried a bunch of different things and some of the stuff worked. I don't, I'm sorry, a lot of the stuff didn't work. I can't remember if any of it worked. I want to say they came back with plausible for certain things, but, uh, but I don't remember. So if anyone's watching this and you're interested, find out that episode on MythBusters. I don't have any more information about it. So, uh, ask Google or I'm sorry, no, excuse me, ask your favorite search engine or maybe your favorite AI thing.

Baba: I think it's leave treats. You put treats down and like if they see you doing it, you just kind of kind of,

Danny C: there was, I don't remember if it was the same one or not, but there was one that we're trying to rob a, um, a safe, like, you know, the simulated gear in a house trying to get to the safe. And one person did do that. I can't remember if it was, um, if it was Tory or someone, but they had the treats and I can't remember how it was at least successful for a bit. I can't remember if it was a hundred percent if they got to the safe and got out or if they got most of the way there, but, uh, but treats, they were at least somewhat effective. What I remember.

Baba: They used to work for me when I did security, you know, like, so yeah. So, um, so hell hounds, um, but yeah, so, uh, the, but that notion of the, their, the devil's muscle, you know, to come and get, get his stuff, you know, um, or, um, uh, yeah, I mean, going back to you, we talked like Hecate, um, now Hecate being sort of a, I mean, she's not a threshold guardian, but it kind of becomes that after a minute, you know, but, um, but it's this, this idea of, uh, yeah, somebody that's at the edge of the world, someone that can, um, someone that you might want to make a deal with to, to get stuff. You know, so there, it's actually not too different, you know, when it comes to talking about the hell hounds and things.

WDG: There is a instance, I think for, um, supposedly on, uh, Valperg's night. Uh, yeah. It's like, it's, um, the devil is actually supposed to be take up like a dog form and wander around. And so sometimes you might see like, you know, in the sense that some in Germany, like Chris, you actually won't be able to expand on that a little bit more than, yeah, than the deputy. Um, but like, and I know that that was like that same kind of like the festival, like, you know, kind of thing is also adapted for, um, like for Faust for the, for the play, you know, like for GoTo's play, you know, but it's not a dog. It's like actually the devil, like, Hey, like we're taking it to the under the other world, you know, like kind of thing. But the idea is like, you know, the devil's wandering around, you know, like, I guess starting off mischief, but it's like really interesting though, but it doesn't seem like that hell has directly like a trickster of any sorts. Usually it's, it's usually like pretty straightforward kind of.

Baba: It seems to usually be on some kind of mission. Now the, the, um, Walpurgis night thing or Walpurgis knocked, um, it's for those, actually a lot of Americans don't know about this because we, for whatever reason, like to rip ourselves off when it comes to Halloween. Um, but there's another Halloween. Uh, there's a, there's a Walpurgis knocked is April 30th and it is named after it is, um, St. Walpurgis, um, the leader of a, uh, took over an abbot after her brother died. Um, and it's in this mountainous region of Germany, otherwise known as Germany. It's pretty mountainous, but, um, that's, that's me. I've never visited. Sorry, German fans. Leave it in the comments. You know how I roll here. Um, so yeah, it's, uh, it's basically, it's the day before May day. Uh, it's a, a, a festival celebrating the beginning of spring. Um, it's, uh, basically,

WDG: um, this is like kind of wicker man, but

Baba: so Beltane, um, is also, uh, on May 1st, if I'm not mixing up my, um, reconstructed piece. Um, if I'm not yet, uh, but, um, and I like all of those, by the way, don't, don't take my snarkiness as shade. I love any party. Um, and so, uh, yeah. So Mayday, um, is the one that's got the famous or, uh, Beltane has got the dancing around the pole with the ribbons and things like that. And, um, and that's, yeah, the wicker man, uh, both movies, uh, kind of harken back to, uh, this, um, this idea of a pagan feast that fertility type feast, um, at, on May day, but the night before May day is Valpergus knocked and they tend to pair up, you all have like these like scary nights where witches and dead things roam around are like the day before like holy days and holidays and stuff. So Halloween is all Hallows Eve because it's all Hallows are all saints, all the holy ones, all Hallows Eve. And so the night before is this, this other thing, you know, these monsters and stuff. So, um, Valpergus knocked is similar, but it's specifically associated with witches and the witches travel to the Brock and this particular mountain to consort with the devil. Um, because it's that type of witch in this story, you know, and they fly around and do things and they're on necky and things like that. It's a good time if you can go. And, uh, and those of you that don't celebrate Valpergus knock, you're missing out on a good time. April 30th. Um, it's 10 days after another good holiday, April 30th, you know, um, celebrate this, uh, dress up like a witch. I'll be doing it.

Danny C: Um, and there's no excuse because this episode drops just after the new year. So, uh, you can start planning now.

Baba: You can plan now. Don't let another year go by where you ignore or unaware of Valpergus knocked. Hellhounds will come and get you if you reject an invite.

WDG: Specifically the devil.

Baba: Who are the devil in the form of Hellhound? Um, not in his usual shape of goat, although he probably goat too. It's a, it's a long party, witches have to travel from all over the world,

Baba: you know?

Danny C: Um, Hellhounds, they, they are, I don't think we, and apologies if Bill, you did cover this, um, the, the general look of them, they're, they're, they're very large. I want to say what, like six, six feet long, something like that. How big are they?

WDG: I think they're like, yeah, I mean, they're like big dog. I mean, well, they usually get described as like large. I think they're, I think the ones that are like, in like England and Scotland, all they're like usually like a mastiff. So a very big size dog, you know? So I mean like that, obviously that could be like, if a mastiff is standing up on his paws and they, you know, it would be, yeah, probably about that, you know, big. It's like, but they're usually, yeah, and they're usually black, you know, and they usually have red eyes, like they usually, and they're, or they're in some kind of spectral, you know, variant of them, you know? Um, but yeah, uh, and it's, uh, yeah, there's, so it's, but it doesn't, a lot of times like I do, I didn't come across like a lot of like size description. It's mostly just like, oh God, this is scary black dog that just like came out or like you see it from far away and it's like howling, you know, like, uh, like the distance or something like it's, you know, it's kind of like, um, some of it it's also probably because it's like, you know, again, like hunting dogs, like, you know, so there's like that wild hunt, which I think we've touched on before, type of element, like in a couple of variations, like, I think the, like, uh, like, there's obviously like the, like a Norse version of that. There's also a Welsh version of the sort of wild hunt. That's like, you know, also has to deal with like spectral dogs. I think that, I think the Welsh dog can have like, it can actually, its eyes will change depending on if it's being good or evil. I think that's not one where it's like its eyes might be blue. If it's going to help you be good and help you. And it's like, its eyes will be red if it's going to turn on, you know, like, yeah.

Danny C: So kind of go along with this. This is an interesting thought. Um, so we talked about the domestication of dogs. Okay. Yeah. Does anybody know how far back that goes and where I'm going with this, you know, you have Greek mythology as far as I found out how hounds were all like, like, Syrabbis is all like demonic, the guardian of, you know, the, howler Hades or whatever, not necessarily guiding you from one place to another. And I'm curious if there is a correlation between the change in the role of the hell hound around the time where dogs are actually domesticated. Does anyone know anything about either of those?

Baba: Well, that'd be 15,000 years.

WDG: Yeah, I was going to say, yeah, dogs are well before civilization domesticated dogs. Yeah.

Baba: So agricultural revolution was put at something like 10,000 BCE.

Danny C: Four times ago.

Baba: Yeah. They're still trying to figure it out. Um, but yeah, yeah. So yeah, it might have something to do more with like shifts in government or something like that. Oftentimes the stories that govern, um, yeah, they shift the stories up in order to do. Maybe this is better.

Danny C: Drug sniffing hellhounds.

WDG: I mean, like, if you think about like, that's my nightmare. Service is not really like, like necessarily like evil, right? It's like, it's like, it's only evil to you if you're trying to break into Hades. You're not supposed to go to Hades. Like, he's just guarding the thing. Um, and obviously like Anubis is like, uh, has multi facets, you know, other than just that, you know, or something like that being like getting into like the old variations of them. I think it's like also the nature of like, probably like, you have like this, like wild dogs, like are, are kind of scary, you know, so they have that element. But yet dogs are like the off of you dogs. If you're someone who likes, I know that everyone is a big, is a dog fan, but I think most people, so they're probably like having that distinct, different weirdness of it, you know, it's like, it kind of falls into that, like, yeah, why they're, why they're kind of like seen as being like, they can be more like, not like a little nature. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And not, um, not like, kind of like, I guess malevolent hell, like cats can sometimes be more malevolent because we know they're like mischievous and there, there are very wild cats that will, can and will eat you, you know, like, you know, that will hunt you down. It's, I would be there. There's a, so it's like, it's, it's just like that difference. I think like, and like, so when like, hellhound is also sort of like, it might be working for someone, but also might be like, just this feral, like nature has reverted it back, right? Like, like it's taken back over the dog. Like there's, um, there's one that like, I've come across two instances of ones that were like, one was a, I think it's like, it's the Catalonian, right? And it's like, which is kind of funny, but it reminds me a little bit of the Chupacabra, but it's a dog, but it's like they're vampire dogs. Like they suck your blood, but they particularly like the blood of people who have been drinking a lot of wine and are out late at night and they're wandering home.

Baba: There's a moral component to this as well.

WDG: So the idea is like, yeah, there's supposed to be like this idea of like, don't be drunk, like, I wandered around, these, you know, these vampire dogs will get you, right?

Baba: Like, it's like, does it matter that kind of why, I hate Malbec.

WDG: So it's a, but then there was like, I can't remember the other one, it was like something about like, it was like, I thought this was really funny. I was like, this is really strange. It was like, it's a protector of people who are drunk. Like it'll actually like, if you're drunk and wandering around, you encounter this dog, it'll help guide you like where you have to go. So it keeps you safe on your way home from being, I don't know, drinking, being out too late drinking. So there's like, so there's, so there's different, uh, different kind of like weird, like, uh, you know, like that weird, I guess dual nature, but it's like the same kind of theme. But one is this other, this kind of moralizing and the other one is like, Oh, it's, it's, it's helpful.

Baba: It sounds like the kind of things somebody would wish for if they were drunk and had the opportunity to make wishes. Oh, we're kind of headed dog. Take care of me whenever I was drunk. Yeah. Make sure I got home safe on my way home.

Danny C: Keeps me hydrated, gets me water in time. Oh

WDG: man. As opposed to like the, like a Saint Bernard and a dog that tries to get you drunk actively, you know, like with this little barrel,

Baba: which deserves it's, it's minor, minor tangent on dog saints. You have the Saint Bernard, which is a dog. Bill, you pointed this out to me. Yeah. A dog named after a Saint, but it's a dog. And then you've got Saint Guinefort. Saint Guinefort is a dog and is a Saint. And I've never heard a person named Guinefort after that, but probably out of respect for the dog or maybe because you just don't name people after dogs. But anyone in our odd, if, if you name your kid after Guinefort and, um, and you send out announcement things with dogs on them, we will give you a free year of our Patreon. Once we make it, it doesn't have to be a real kid. It does, it has to be believable enough that we would be fooled by it. And you know, based on our conversations, what that would take.

Baba: So don't go too far.

Baba: But a fraud, a fraud or a hoax that convinces us you named your kid Guinefort and sent out an announcement in the form of dog cards. Sound fair? I think that's worth our Patreon.

Danny C: I agree with that. Put in the comments of where we can find this and, and we'll, we'll set you up.

WDG: I tried to see if there was any, um, relation between like, it's obviously like, Oh, I wonder if there's like some relation between like the food dogs, the guardians and the, and like, but it really wasn't other than like, food dogs are like just guardians of a thing, you know? So other than the liminal space, it wasn't really like, it didn't have the same kind of vibe though. There is a Japanese like variant where it's like a yokai, I guess, or like a dog. And if it starts, but if you're wandering like down a, you know, like in like a mountain path or something like that, right? You're wandering home through the woods or something. And then the dog starts following you. You can't, if you fall down, the dog will eat you. But if you are lying down and you'd like appear to just be resting, it'll leave you alone. And then there's some other variants that if it follows you all the way home, you have to like give it a treat or something. So, and make it go away. So it doesn't come to get you like, you know, there's like, it comes in that variant too of like, I think in there, there's a couple other ones where it's like, again, ghost rules, like it's, it has to be like, allowed in, it's not going to break into your home or something, but it will stay out there until, until you give it something to go away, you know? Because in the weird sense, it's like, so it sort of protects people potentially, but also is kind of malevolent, like, like, might get you as well, you know? So it's like, sort of like, so there's like, again, the weird, like dual nature kind of thing. But it's, it's very, very weird.

Baba: There's a story, this is not a dog, but there's a story in, oh, God, I want to say it's Peru. Peru. Anyway, that there's this idea of,

Danny C: For your benefit, I have to interrupt. I

Baba: wish I remembered what that stupid joke even was. That's where that came from. Anyway, if you, that if you sleep on your back, a jaguar won't eat you. If you sleep face up, because it sees you as an other as an being and not as an object to be eaten.

WDG: It's just some more. I don't know if I'd want to test that out.

Baba: Yeah, yeah, no, no. No, my I've weird luck.

WDG: Yeah, I mean, I hope I'm not in a place where there's jaguars, unless there's escaped ones. Yeah. Some zoo, but even then I feel like that's a, it's going to be pretty.

Baba: And if they're like laying low and try not to be seen, you know, just kind of, hey, you know, they won't see a jaguar around here.

WDG: But also, but don't, but don't lay down the road and get run over by like the car. But I guess that's a jaguar. Yeah, I don't think they won't care. I don't know. Jaguar owners, I doubt you're watching this, but would you run a person over if they were laying face up in the room?

Baba: I don't know, but all of this together with the song, man eater, there's a famous misheard lyric in there. At least I misheard it. Oh, I have a whole life. A she cat tamed by the purr of a jaguar, Jaguar, as he pronounces it there. So the song man eater ties into this, but none of this has to do with hellhounds. Unless he, unless, um, unless, um, oh God, who is it? They're a Philly group. Uh, uh, that did the man eater. Holidotes, unless Holidotes sold their soul at a crossroads. In which case, I don't know what else to say about that.

WDG: They might have, I don't know.

Baba: They might have. I mean, you know,

Danny C: which thought of this earlier. So listeners and watchers, um, if you want to test out the crossroads, um, I guess it's typically done on a New Year's Eve. Does it, can it be done anytime?

WDG: I mean, the New Year's Eve with the three stool thing. Yeah.

Baba: Like, yeah. Now the three stool thing, three legged stool at a three way crossroad on New Year's Eve. And you'll hear who dies that year.

Danny C: Okay. No, no. Okay. So, so for our listeners and watchers, um, this just occurred, man, which I thought of this earlier. Um, if you want to summon a dog that'll protect you and take care of you while you've been drinking, do that at the crossroads, put down the offering and see if you can get one of these dogs.

Baba: And the offering should be alcohol related or alcohol. Um, because they go why you're summoning that dog.

WDG: Can we go a couple of dogs or if you've drank a lot of water,

Baba: if you've had some mind, you can just go, I need a ride. Just bear your neck or wrist. And it does that. You need a ride. Come thou forth. Oh, um, you can just approximate the name because you might be, it's used to hearing some slurred, uh, come forth. I swear it wasn't Malbec. Um, you heard about the one that sounds like the beginning of a joke. Um, a hellhound busts into a church. Um, did you hear about this? 1577 in Suffolk or Norfolk? And that's how it's said, right? You don't say the L K like we do in the States, like Norfolk, right? So in Suffolk or North, it was in Suffolk, I believe it is known. Is a form of the hellhounds known as the black shock or old shock, old shock, or simply shock or shucky poo. Really, really close or dating. Um, busted into a church in 1577, um, in Suffolk and killed two people. Um, it, when it busted in its paws burned into the floor and the door. Uh, and then it was in the midst of a storm, a lightning storm. It killed two people. The congregation was there. Nobody even tried to stop it. Again, air quote Christians. Yeah. But here we go. No one tried to stop their prayer. I'm not just scared to hell. Maybe they had it coming to them. But, um, yeah, they, uh, killed two people and left, burned its claw marks into the doors, which are allegedly still there. Uh, you can go and see it. It is, um, is there a name of this church? It's an Anglican church. Google black shock is in Ben, Ben gay Suffolk.

Danny C: Similar to that in, uh, in April of 72, I just pulled this up, apparently a coast guard officer, Graham grand reported seeing the black shock as well. And it was just kind of there was hanging out and then it vanished. Allegedly. He had never heard of the story before. So maybe he saw something, maybe he didn't, maybe it was his eyes playing tricks on them. But interesting nonetheless, it's a modern day story back in 1972, only 53 years ago, 54, because we're in the new year, 54 years ago.

Baba: And that's when I hear something like this. So like 1577 is not that long ago. I mean, yeah, okay. It's long ago. But like, when you consider like, Oh, well this tail, like we talked about the tail of the, uh, the, the devil, the devil with the magic sack and it was during our crossroads conversation, but it was like, the devil and the blacksmith, it harkens back to like bronze age tales. So you've got the bronze age, then you've got like, like 1577 is like a few years ago compared to the bronze age, you know?

WDG: So yeah, um, the bronze age is only coming out of like, you know, neo-lithic, you know, something like that. You're just getting out of like, it's like, yeah, civilization. Yeah.

Baba: I mean, versus, versus domestication of the dog, 15,000 years ago and stuff. So when I hear more recent tales like that, it's kind of interesting. And then of course we had those sightings in New York city in the 1980s at Rick Moranis's party. What was his name in the, in the ghostbusters.

Danny C: It too mentioned Rick Moranis. I thought, I thought this was a real, a real story that I had not heard yet.

Baba: And then you mentioned him and I was like, strange things did happen at parties in the 80s. People would increase drug use. But, uh, but yeah, because spirits show up when you've got stuff to share, you know, you go, Hey, Chuck, this one for you. And Chuck's like, you do have the hellhounds. They enter into a pop culture. You've got, um, you do have, um, the dogs in, in ghostbusters, which are kind of a, uh, they are there to, um, assist with, um, the workings of, um, dozer, gozer.

WDG: Yes. Goes there in the ghost area. Yeah.

Baba: And, um, and for the, bring him back Zuul, because it's never too, it's never too late to bring back Zuul. If you've got a fridge, Zuul might be there, but that those were devil dogs. There are devil dogs. There are the snacks.

WDG: They are.

Baba: Of which if you're, if you're not in the snack, they could be. And

Danny C: if you like devil dogs, put them in the freezer and then take them out later. It's a, it's a nice and nice little treat when they've been frozen.

WDG: A more of a, a more of a, I wish I knew about that back when I still like devil dogs, but with chocolate on top, you know,

Baba: I might, um, I might meet the, the, I might meet the guy at the crossroads to get rid of some food allergies. And then I can get do, I can partake in these, um, till then we're just going to have to rely on, on the, our, our, our, our very good looking, smart and good taste, uh, listeners and viewers to leave it in the comments. You beautiful folks about whether you, you followed Dan's note. Oh, and if you broke a tooth on that, yeah, we're not nutritionists. We're not, we're a bunch of idiots that talk about these things.

WDG: It's a podcast. You talk about things. Give it a whirl. That sounds pretty good. Yeah. It's speaking of a weird one that came across. It's French or like that's Brittany, you know, like, as it goes far enough back, there's a ghost ship that's manned by sold prisoners, you know, so ghosts there. And it's guarded by basically like hellhound type, you know, guardians on the ship. So they can't get off your spirits. Can't leave the ghost ship, you know, so, so yeah, so that's it. I thought that was, that one was kind of a weird one. It's like, that is a weird one. Yeah. So it's like, so they're like, I usually don't think of like, but I mean, guess you, you know, you would have dogs on boats, you know, and things like that. But like, it's, yeah, it's kind of a guard dogs on boats, you know, keeping the, the traps souls, I guess forever rowing this boat around. But yeah, it's a, I thought that was a, that one was particularly strange, uh, to, well, yeah, so

Baba: yeah, I hope they're not skeletal forms. Those dogs would really be something to attend with. There is another form of the hellhound that's not as hellish, but it does deal with dogs. And it's the, the, uh, the grim, the graveyard grim. It's a church yard dog, that guards the cemetery. And sometimes the church, sometimes the keepers of the church. I first encountered this in a, in an anime actually. Maotsukainouyome, or the, uh, what is it? The, the magician, the, the magus, ancient magus bride is the, the English translation, ancient magus bride, M A G U S. And there's a character that is the grim, you meet them in the first couple episodes. So that's not really a spoiler. Um, but the grim, so oftentimes a black dog would be buried in the church yard. Hopefully one that had died of natural causes. Um, again, don't, not to be wagging my fingers at shady Christians, you know, but, um, you shouldn't do that. You shouldn't bury things alive. You shouldn't kill things. Um, grim, the other hellhounds will come to get you. Uh, so yeah. Uh, but that, that's one that's not a bad guy, but probably still not a welcoming counter. Oftentimes these things are described, Dan, you mentioned this often described as being supernaturally large, often described as being the size of horses and the ones that are associated with the wild hunt were like huge, like riding along with the horses and stuff like that. Also associated with the hellhound, not quite. And I can't remember the name now. There's a wolf that's supposed to wake up and break out of its change at Ragnarok.

WDG: Um, it's, um, it's, uh, what's the name of the dog? It's hell's dog, like hell A A G L.

Baba: Yeah.

WDG: Hell's

Baba: dog. Ragnarok. The hell of a dog.

WDG: Yeah. It's a, it's a hell of a dog.

Baba: Garne. It's a G A R M. It definitely has a growly sound to what when you say it, like I just did. It's going to bring you back to the ship. It's a pirate. Those dogs were all Garmer. Um, yeah, it looks like it's got an R on the ends.

WDG: Garmer. It helps you follow your GPS. Once at the end of the world, it still works.

Baba: Yeah. So Ragnarok, when everything goes to hell and the giants come to kill all the gods, um, they take out Valhalla and everything. Those of you that were betting on Valhalla to be the place that you can chill because there's like warrior spirits and stuff, you know, the giants eventually come and smash you to bits, right? It doesn't end well. It doesn't, it'll wind up getting destroyed by the giants. Giants. I guess we're going to have to talk about giants at some point. There is there, there's stories of giants. They're supposed to be around even like early, I mean, talk about just yesterday, like the early colonial explorers and, and, and even later than that, and even probably in the nineties, I'm sure there are other better podcasts.

WDG: San Diego or San Francisco. Yeah. Yeah. I think there's baseball. You know what? Yeah, definitely. Definitely drag.

Baba: New York giants.

WDG: Yeah. That would have been the better call. You can see, I know a lot about, if we

Baba: know about these things, do you think we know a lot about sports? I'll speak for myself.

WDG: Yeah. Um, everything I learned about sports, I learned from video game sports. So, uh, yeah.

Danny C: George Carlin.

WDG: Yeah. Yeah. Probably that.

Baba: Yeah. He got me to write a bunch of them off. So like, oh, sorry, Dan. No, you got it.

Danny C: Yeah. No, no, no. It's completely unrelated.

WDG: Yeah. Go, go for it.

Danny C: That's completely unrelated. I stumbled across this other show called the Dave Benson show. It's kind of like a late night kind of show. And it made me think of this. Perhaps we need a left track on our, on our, uh, our podcast. Bring back like the old school nineties sitcom with a left track

WDG: or always like to like in flying circuits. It's like, you see like the audience and it's like old ladies, like they're clapping, you

Danny C: know, because in, in his talk show, he has like the, the applause, the applause sound, uh, which we think of left track for us.

Baba: I think we probably should bring it back. Put her to have, put the applause or the laughs after my jokes though, because I need all the help I can get.

Danny C: Um, and then there'll be the crickets as well for times where they totally just put

Baba: them after my other joke. I like to give some practical advice to our viewers kind of thing. Um, hecate is long in this business and it might just be worth it to make nice with the dogs of hecate and with hecate herself. If you feel like you're in, in an industry or lifestyle that you might encounter these kinds of things and, um, make dice with dogs anyway, make dice with dogs anyway, wherever you go.

WDG: Like, unless they're like vicious evil dog that's going to eat you. Um, those vampire dogs definitely don't make dice with that.

Baba: I think what, I think what I'm trying to say is that if you have not accepted hecate as your patron deity, then you might want to consider it now while you still have the time. Now you might know from previous conversations that I have not yet done that, but I was also voted in grade school and high school, most likely to get eaten by hellhounds. So don't take my, my lack of caution as a reason that you can be lax. Get at it. Find your three-way crossroads today and make your future brighter, at least from a hellhounds perspective. All right.

WDG: Okay. So you're wondering either at the roads, at the edge of town or past the graveyard or home drunk or at some three-way stop sign for some reason, but you're not in the car, you happen to be walking. It's nighttime. Daytime's not going to be for a while. And a giant, supernaturally giant, black dog with glowing red eyes is coming after you. Like, is this a frightening scenario? I mean, but is it one? I don't know. To eat you? It was a belly.

Baba: It was to go walkies.

WDG: Definitely. Yes. Nausages.

Danny C: Forget distracting the dogs with all kinds of things. Just trying to give it a belly. But

WDG: it's still like dragging the hell. If you hit it, it's tickle spot, you know? It's like, yeah, dogs can be nice. They can be our friendly companions or they can be vicious merch. It's spent by demon dogs. Yeah. I'll turn on you in a second. Now the second thought, yes, they will eat you probably. If you're dead, you know, soon you die of natural causes. They may, in fact. But yeah, these generally non-domestic dogs wandering around being evil. Yeah, I'm going to say, and potentially best case scenario, you're going to the underworld and it's not a horrible afterlife. Worst case scenario, you're being eaten or dragged to hell. You know, so there's, there's kind of like these kinds of like things are neither one seem very, very good. So yeah, so I'm going to go hellhounds or like, you know, I like dogs, like obviously. But yeah, hellhounds are pretty scary. I'm going to say like, I would want to encounter a giant freaking glowing red eyed dog on a road at night by myself when I'm walking around, especially if I've already made some kind of crossroad demon to deal or I've done it or just or I'm drunk, you know, I don't want either of these things to happen. So I'm going to definitely give it a solid three arf arf arf, I think is.

Baba: Three arf. All right. Well, all right. Well, I guess I'll, since I'm talking, thanks.

WDG: It's off to you. Sorry. Yeah. I'll.

Baba: Yeah, that's pretty scary. Tell you the truth, when I'm alone at night on a road, I just want to remain alone. And unless it's an endless, liminal space, that is just an endless road, which we haven't encountered that particular thing yet. But yeah, I definitely don't want to encounter anything on the road, glowing eyes or not. But yeah, that sounds pretty damn scary. Um, I guess the best I could hope for is that I'm for some reason drunk, which probably already means it was a really, really bad day. That's post 2016, which seems to be or 2006. Yeah, I won't go back even further. Yeah. That's pretty scary. That's pretty scary. I guess I would just hope. Is that what you do at that point? You just hope? No. Or you do convert to the religion, most likely to keep you safe while the dog between nine and when it gets to you. I'm going to give it. I'm going to give it probably. Uh, four and a half eaten homework. Because, uh, because it's all right, I'm gonna I'll do another. I'm going to raise this. I'm going to say what's your strategy in a second. And then we're going to roll a d6 and we're gonna find out what kind of hellhound it was. If your strategy was good. Yeah, four and a half eaten homework. And, um, but my strategy, my strategy is that I, um, it's got glowing red. Damn. Okay. If I'm by myself, I've got one strategy. If I'm with somebody else, I've got another. Let's say I'm with my friend, red herring. And I'm walking along and here's the hellhound.

WDG: It was thrown off the whole time.

Baba: And this thing is coming from behind. And we look back and we see it. And then I say, it found you, Baba. Run. And just hope. Sorry, red. That that works. That it just goes after the other one. And I get away, you know, because apparently I'm some kind of scoundrel anyway, because I've already sold by solid. It's coming for me. If I haven't, I'm going to lay down in the street. I guess face up. And I'm gonna hope that it just thinks I'm sleeping or that it's actually a Jaguar. And, uh, and I'm just going to see how that works. All right. Um, we're gonna have to do a D six chart or something. Right? So we got, what do we have? We've got, we've got the, the drunk helper. We've got the drunk antagonist, right?

WDG: Cause one of them, the blood sucker. Yeah. The blood, the

Baba: blood sucker. Uh, the devil, the devil, the devil itself. Um, you've got the, um, the thugs, the, um, um, the money man, the collectors, the collector dogs. They're there for your soul.

Danny C: I think one of the numbers has to be other.

Baba: Yeah.

Danny C: Cause it's always that possibility. It's other.

WDG: It's just a dog. It just, just, just, just, it's your neighbor's dog. It's tags and all like, you're like, Hey, your neighbor's dog. That also is going into your trash all the time. Like, you know, so, yeah.

Baba: So six is other probably, hopefully not a hell hand. We need, we need one more in there.

WDG: Um, the dog, uh, that's going to destroy, dragged around. Oh shit.

Baba: Yeah.

WDG: Um, it's literally the end of, of everything.

Baba: Yeah. So then what difference does it make? What your strategy is? You got there before the giants do.

Danny C: So the real question is, do you give the results of the die roll in this one or do we wait till the next?

Baba: See, we'll have to decide, but I'll tell you what we will do. We're going to take your vote. And then I want to hear your strategy and then bill your strategy. And then I'm going to roll and let you know we all got, and we can decide on the edit, whether it goes to one or the other one.

Danny C: Sounds good. All right. So, uh, how hounds up. I, I don't know if I'm getting braver, the board that we're doing these or not.

WDG: So it's a giant demon dog. You're like, yeah, yeah. You're like, I'll get it.

Danny C: But the thing with the hell had, it's either there to punish you or protect you. So it's, if I'm, if I'm getting punished anyway, I'm getting punished regardless, I feel like. So it's not, it's not like it's going to chase me down and like gnash at me and throw me around or something like that, or just claw its way through. It seems like there's some kind of, I deserve this, whatever time I'm getting punished, or it's just kind of there to, you know, help get me home safely or something like that. Or go after the person that's walking with me. So for me, I don't find it particularly all that scary more so than say a regular dog. If I encountered a regular dog walking home at night, I think I'd be definitely on guard more because it's like, they are very unpredictable.

Baba: Harder to categorize.

Danny C: They are. They are. This one's very nice and clean. It's either this or that. Once you get into real dogs, quote unquote, real dogs, they can be, there's a spectrum instead. So I'm going to give this, I think two dogs and a puppy is my real, and a strategy. Okay. So I see this thing. It's what was coming at me from behind was that the scene?

Baba: I think initially it wasn't funny. That was my way of getting it to chase after red herring. But yeah.

Danny C: Okay. I'm going to try to just run and get away from it. If I can climb up to higher ground, climb up on a tree or a pickup truck, or maybe get break into a car and try to try to if it's really big, maybe I can get under the car so it gets too big to get to me. I don't know. I'm going to be frantically panicking. And you probably will not end well.

Baba: You're going for a hiding spot or a running away. So that'll be your strategy. We'll roll for you in a second here.

WDG: All right. All right. So if I started out, you know, let's see, the, is there a bridge? Can I run across? Yeah. Is there something like we can try a bridge? Exit the cemetery. Yeah. Exit the cemetery. Yeah. I mean, I guess like running like may work, but I don't know if that's really gonna work. If there's nowhere to duck into, I don't think running is a best strategy. I'm going to go with the treats. Like do I have a, no, better yet, pick up a stick and wing the stick. Because I know until it right now, dealing with the new dog, man, does he love sticks? Like any, like I need like walking outside. He's still learning how to walk on a leash, you know, there's a stick. He grabs it and he runs until the leash goes, like, and he can't go anymore. It's like, so, um, and he wants to take that stick and get as far away from me as possible with the stick because he doesn't want me to take it away from him. So I think I will give it a pick up the closest, probably a tree branch. If it's a big giant demon dog and wing it. Cause I think running, speaking of Ghostbusters, not like it was a pretty scary movie, obviously it's supposed to be a comedy, but like, um, the thing that I always found most disturbing about when, uh, Rick Baratas's character gets run down by the demon dog is nobody cares. There's tons of people around and everyone's just like, he was important, but he gets to the thing and he's not, he gets to the windows and the dinner. And everyone just like sees him and it's like, ah, and like people at the party clearly see the dog, like it runs out of him, but everyone just kind of like goes back to eating like, yep, that sucks. Oh, well.

Baba: Like, what is this? A church in 1577.

WDG: Yeah. Yeah. Like, like, no, so, so I don't, I don't know that doesn't seem like running is effective. So I'm going to go with big stick throw a big stick.

Danny C: I'm going to, I'm going to add to that. I think that it would be very effective. And I'll tell you guys a story. Uh, I don't know if I don't have to either of you were actually here for this, but, uh, when I was a kid, uh, we had our dog bonsai and, um, like any other dog, you say the dog would go for a walk and, you know, they go all crazy and everything. So here I am, I'm probably like eight or something walking this dog on a leash and she happens to break out of my hands and she starts taking off down the road. I'm like, Oh my God, like dog Lewis. My parents are going to kill me and just happened to yell out to the dog. I say, bonsai, you want to go for a walk? Stops dead in her tracks and looks back and I'm like, come on. I start running. She follows me. I get her back into, you know, the defense stand yard, I close it and then I like breathe a sigh of relief. So I think there's something to be said about the dogs and their instinct by taking that bone and throwing it. You, you might be able to do something. I think that could work.

Baba: Let's find out. Let's find out. Let's find out what kind of dogs we had. All right. All right. So I'll go first. He got a six-sided die here. I don't remember what the options were. So I'm just going to kind of, all right. I rolled a five apocalypse dog. He actually doesn't care about me. He's here to kill Thor. I mean, I'm done for anyway. So I guess I still have time to, to party. So I got apocalypse dog. My strategy worked out. Thank God. All right.

WDG: Let's see. Red herring actually was Odin or something.

Baba: All right, Dan, the blood sucker. So actually, Dan, you're okay. You're okay. You, you, um, don't know if you were drinking or not. Say odds or evens. Uh, odds you were drinking.

Danny C: Oh, so you shouldn't have said that. No, no, I need like a flip now or something. Maybe I'll just hold on. I'll do, I'll do heads or tails with my favorite, my less than favorite search engine. Okay. Uh, say, uh, say, oh wait. Okay. I got that in front of me. What's, uh, what's what if it's heads you were drinking. All right. It says tails. I was not drinking.

Baba: You're not drinking. The dog's just kind of like, oh, my bed kind of like smell a little like wine. This is the talking. The one of the talking ones. Okay. Yeah. So you're okay too. We're actually, we're pretty lucky. I don't know. I don't know about this guy. Here we go. All right. You, you also got the blood sucker dog. All right. Let's see. Um, Dan, Dan, um, um, let's do your, let's do the heads or tails or bill. Do you have a coin?

WDG: No, I do not have a coin handy.

Baba: All right. So we'll do heads or tails. Um, if it's heads, you were drinking. Yeah.

WDG: Tails. So what after the stick is actually friendly.

Baba: No, so actually audience, it turns out that it's actually not that hard to survive.

WDG: Just, just hopefully you're not drinking. Are the ones that that's the, that's the, it's the crap.

Baba: Maybe they're the real ones.

Danny C: Maybe they're the other ones that are still around. I'm envisioning a title for this episode being survived the how hound attack.

Baba: It's like, I thought we were all going to get killed. I was like, I was like, well, no matter what kind of dog, so

WDG: easy. You'll think it's illegal.

Baba: Oh my God. Oh God. I think that's funny, but once we add those, those, the land bracket, we, we did, we got the joke. All right. Well, I think that's, um, dog on it. Yeah. Stick a fork in this one. Hot dog. We reached the end of it.