The Scottish Dog

Looking for more deerhound in print - this Aberdeen University Press publication is a must for lovers of Scottish Breeds - The Scottish Dog - edited by Joyce and Maurice Lindsay is a cultural excursion into the magical world of Scottish Dogs - with Ghost Dogs, Literary Dogs, Heraldic Dogs, Good Dogs, Bad Dogs - poetry, humour and tales galore, seek out this book where you can. Many breeds are covered and of course the book wouldn't be complete without The Scottish Deerhound - which can be found in several sections within. There are also poems by writer Vallerie Gillies whom we have featured elsewhere on the blog with her fantastic Men & Beasts book - check out another of her poems below and we also recommend you seek out her books where you can.

Deerhounds

Admit the lives more valuable
than our life, than the bodies we bear
more beautiful: tall grey dogs,

what huntsman, what dogboy loosed you
on our slow hearts
and let you slaughter them?

Long dogs, you move with air
belling the vault of your ribcage.
You subdue the miles below your hocks.

Levelled out in speed across wayless country,
over the open grassmoor that is paradise,
the onset of your going undulates the ground.

The bracken hurdles below your height,
the rushes make way for you;
your hard eyes hold in sight the rapid hills.

Brace of deerhounds, a matched two!
Intent, all flame, is what quickens
those long throats thonged with leather.

Vallerie Gillies