The Amazing Adventures of Archibald Esq.
Sainted Dogs: Saint Guinefort the Greyhound
The legend of Saint Guinefort concerns a Saintly Greyhound who is said to have lived in the mid-13th century in France. Dogs in Celtic and Feudal times were often highly prized beasts – especially hounds and hunting dogs. Dogs were not only essential hunting companions, but also a good source of warmth on the baronial bed during cold nights in unheated, cavernous stone castles.
Arooof! If only I would be allowed onto the big bed my owners would soon see how warm and snuggly I could be! And even though our house is called Chateau d’Archie, it is not made of cold damp stone… Alas, times have moved on since the middle ages, and some progress has been made. For example, people now by and large have central heating, which has removed one of the hounds’ essential roles in human life… Other things have not progressed, however, like the kicking of dogs out of human beds! But one cannot wish to turn back time, and in any case, my noble breed - the badger hound - was not yet in existence at the time of Guinefort, to whose tale we must now return….
Guinefort the greyhound, like most hounds of good quality and warm hearts, was a trusted family member. One day he was left to guard an infant – almost certainly a seigneurial, male infant (which means the child would one day be Lord of the Manor). When the father returned, to his horror he saw blood covering the room, with blood surrounding Guinefort’s mouth. Shaking with rage the father took out his bow and arrow and shot Guinefort the Greyhound in the heart.
When the arrow pierced his houndish heart, the infant cried out. At the sound of the child’s crying the man in an instant realised that the child was unharmed and that he had killed the dog in error. As he studied the scene with grieving eyes he noticed the body of a serpent below the child’s crib – which Guinefort had killed in protection of the child. At the time there were superstitions that snakes and serpents were the ‘familiars’ of the devil, and so the man thought that Guinefort had not only saved the child’s mortal life, but also his immortal one too.
In accordance to ancient Celtic tradition, the father, along with the rest of the family, committed the dog’s body to a well, and planted a grove of trees around it to honour the brave greyhound. (Wells were thought of as holy places, and trees were also seen to be imbued with mystical powers - and in both these views humans of old were not wrong, but they have sadly forgotten these truths).
Eventually local peasants and villagers learned of the story of poor Guinefort’s bad end, and the people began to make pilgrimages to the grove to pray to the canine martyr. Thus the tradition of Saint Guinefort the Greyhound took root in the people’s hearts.
This later became the international folktale known as ‘The Faithful Hound.’ Etienne de Bourbon, an Inquisitor of the Roman Church, recorded that in the 13th century in the area around Lyon some women had taken their infants to saint Guinefort. Bourbon’s job as an Inquisitor was to try to get people to have the ‘right’ ideas about saints and god, and to stamp out false idols.
At first Bourbon thought Saint Guinefort to be human, but he recorded in his notebooks that that he “finally learned that this was actually a greyhound which had been killed…. The peasants, hearing of the dog’s conduct and of how it had been killed, although innocent, and for a deed for which it might have expected praise, visited the place and honoured the dog as a martyr, [and] prayed to it when they were sick or in need of something…”
Thinking the sainthood of a dog to be scandalous, the mean-hearted Etienne de Bourbon had the dog’s body disinterred and the sacred wood cut down and burnt (along with the remains of the dog). Thus it appears that, at least to the Inquisition, a dog cannot officially become a saint, but it can become an official heretic!
Despite the best efforts of the inquisitors to eradicate the cult of Saint Guinefort the Greyhound, people continued to visit his grove up until the 1940s, and there are ruins of a chapel dedicated to Saint Guinefort at Trevon in Brittany (Cotes d’Armor), and in 1987 a movie was even made about the dog and his cult called ‘The Sorceress’ (France 1988).
In the 14th century another saint – Saint Roch – was associated with a dog. There is also a connection between St Guinefort and St Christopher – who is sometimes called Cynephoros (dog-headed). There are some ikons of St Christopher that show the saint with a dog’s face. Some people suggest that the story of St Guinefort is a popular misunderstanding of the cult of Christopher, as Christophoros Cynocephalus or Cynephoros is easily corrupted to Guinefort.
The dog-headed St Christopher story seems known in England, though Old English traditions are rare. According to the Old English Passion of St Christopher he was ‘healf hundisces mancynnes’ – of the race of mankind who are half-hound. These were ‘from the nation where men have the head of a dog. Furthermore, St Christopher was said to ‘have the head of a hound, and his locks were extremely long, his eyes shone as bright as the morning star, and his teeth were as sharp as a boar’s tusk.
What this shows, in my small but houndish mind, is that the original peoples of the earth recognised that good people were dog-people, with not only puppyhearts, but dog’s heads too!
Awoof! Archie
Posted 31 Jan 06
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©2008 Roleta Archibald, Awoof!™
[…] This Welsh legend has a very strong resemblance to the tale of Saint Guinefort – a legendary French dog who achieved ’sainthood’ and veneration of the people of Brittany — awoof! […]
Archie - Dog tales - Gelert the Legendary Welsh Hound @ 11:22 am, 13 December 2007