Note 56 — Chapter IV · ANIMAL-WORSHIP.

Throughout folk-lore the dog is associated with the spirits of the dead, as we have seen to be the case with Syâma, “the black one,” and Sabala or Karvara, the “spotted ones,” the attendants of Yama.56 Hence the dog is regarded as the guardian of the household, which they protect from evil spirits. According to Aubrey,57 “all over England a spayed bitch is accounted wholesome in a house; that is to say they have a strong belief that it keeps away evil spirits from haunting of a house.” As in the Odyssey, the two swift hounds of Telemachus bear him company and recognize Athene when she is invisible to others, and the dogs of Virgil howl when the goddess approaches, so the Muhammadans believe that dogs recognize Azraîl, the angel of death, and in Northern India it is supposed that dogs have the power of seeing spirits, and when they see one they howl. In Shakespeare King Henry says:—