Beast
The Gytrash
Hoofbeats at dusk, and red eyes.
See it clearly
- What's there
- A hilltop village churchyard below open moor
- Legend from
- West Riding lore; Brontë writings
- Best time
- Dusk
- Tone
- Eerie
Tabby told the Brontë children of the Gytrash, a red-eyed dog that warns of doom.
The Gytrash is a shape-changer of the West Riding said to haunt lonely roads and lead travellers astray, usually as a horse, mule or dog, though sometimes it guides lost people to the right road. Branwell Brontë wrote of it in December 1837, and Charlotte Brontë has Jane Eyre mistake hoofbeats at dusk for a Gytrash. The Telegraph & Argus says the Brontës' servant Tabby Ackroyd, buried in Haworth churchyard, loved telling them tales of hobgoblins, ghosts, fairies and the Gytrash, a red-eyed devil dog whose appearance was an omen of doom. It reports a later sighting of a big black dog by walkers crossing the moor from Ilkley.