Actually the OE word for greyhound is gr�ghund (John R. Clark Hall, A Concise
Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, 1916) One of my sources, which I do not have a
confirmation for, reports that gr�g means bitch.
I have heard before that some period definitions of greyhound were as loose as
"any long-legged, deep chested sighthound." That covers nearly all of them.
In Caius' "Of English Dogges" they are described thusly:
"For it is a spare and bare kinde of Dogge, (of fleshe but not of bone) some
are of a greater sorte, and some of a lesser, some are smooth skynned, & some
are curled, the bigger therfore are appoynted to hunt the bigger beasts, & the
smaller serue to hunt the smaller accordingly."
And I leave you with this thought from Caius.
"The Grehounde called Leporarius, hath his name of this word, Gre, which word
soundeth, Gradus in latine, in Englishe degree. Because among all dogges these
are the most principall, occupying the chiefest place, and being simply and
absolutely the best of the gentle kinde of houndes."
cave canum,
Randwulf
Edie Bain <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
As the Borzoi people pointed out to me--before I got *hard-nosed* and they
came up with better documentation--"breeds" as such were really not a
primary concern in period. One of the better attributions I've come across
relates the word "greyhound" to the Saxon "greu hunde" or "running hound"
(Randwulf will, no doubt, take me to task on this <G>). I truly suspect that
a hound who fitted the "greyhound type" and hunted by sight was called a
Greyhound in period--whether it was IG sized, whippet sized, or whatever.
None of this, however, absolves anyone from documenting their "breed" for
GW! <VBEG>>
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