Familiar Spirit - Prince Rupert's Dog

Prince Rupert's Dog

During the English Civil War, the Royalist general Prince Rupert was in the habit of taking his large poodle dog named Boye into battle with him. Throughout the war the dog was greatly feared among the Parliamentarian forces and credited with supernatural powers. As noted by Morgan, the dog was apparently considered a kind of familiar. At the end of the war the dog was shot, allegedly with a silver bullet.

Read more about this topic:  Familiar Spirit

Famous quotes containing the words prince and/or dog:

    A wholly materialistic city is nothing but a dream incarnate. Venice is the world’s unconscious, a miser’s glittering hoard, guarded by a Beast whose eyes are made of white agate, and by a saint who is really a prince who has just slain a dragon.
    Mary McCarthy (1912–1989)

    Think of the storm roaming the sky uneasily
    like a dog looking for a place to sleep in,
    listen to it growling.
    Elizabeth Bishop (1911–1979)