The legend of Gelert is proving very fascinating to us. The legend was put about by the landlord of the Royal Goat at Beddgelert, in the 19th centuary, to drum up trade. However, Prince John, on the marriage of his daughter, Joan, to Llewellyn,Prince of Gwynedd, included in the dowry, an Irish greyhound, Gelert. We are convinced that our home/ business, was one of Llewellyn's courts. I also subscribe to the view that deerhounds are the direct, lineal, descendants of the old Irish greyhound [or wolf dog].
Strange to think, Ilsa, our deerhound, lives in such a a building, conneced to the history of the breed.

I thought Gelert was an Irish Wolfhound rather than an Irish Greyhound

Brollachan wrote:


Irish Wolfhound people claim he was..

Given that the legend of Gelert has some very dubious origins and could be entirely fantasy, I suspect he was neither wolfhound nor deerhound...

The original tale is something of a fable, it tells us not to judge a book by its cover, first impressions can be wrong, Llewellyn supposedly jumped to the conclusion that his dog Gelert had killed his child, exacted his revenge and then found out he was badly mistaken. Stories like this have been around probably since the beginning of human existance.

In 1793, a crafty landlord made the story of Gelert his own, to attract tourists (nothing is ever new is it!) to his pub, building the cairn of stones that supposedly marks Gelerts grave (we now know its less than 200 years old - the roots of the story are 13th century!)..

So was Gelert a wolfhound or a deerhound... I suspect he was neither, though I doubt very strongly whether Gelert himself existed, I suspect highly that the dog in the minds of those who helped create the legend, was the forerunner of both breeds (given the input deerhounds have had into wolfhounds).

I dont think for a second if gelert had existed, he would have remotely resembled todays huge and rather mastiffy wolfhounds though, far more likely the smaller, slighter, cheaper to feed and house and control deerhoundy dog!

Interestingly the artist Elle Wilson has done a picture of Gelert..

www.historic-uk.com/Histo...elert-death.jpg

Methinks she certainly got the impression that Gelert was a deerhound... not a wolfhound.

In some books and things I read on the internet, it seems that the Irish grey hound, and the scottish grey hound, also the (Wolf hound) may have been one and the same dog. and over the years the two country wanted diffrent things from there dogs, then at some point only the rich and powerful were allowed to own one, and when they know longer had any use for them they started to die out. The Irish wolfhound quite badly, and a man called Captain Graham bread Scottish Deerhounds and Greatdanes into the few wolf hounds that were left and that is what makes up todays Irish wolfhouds...sheona