A Nightwalk with the Cù-sìth*
he’ll find you on dark roads, after the curlew’s call has faded
and nightgloom covers the glen
padding, silent as the grave, past hearths and homes
green and dank as moss, older and stronger than the stone
loping strides bringing him closer, ever closer
embers in the peatfire of incandescent eyes, burning
hunting, to bring prey down a different road, a darker road
who knows what lies at journey’s end
we place our faith in the cross, in iron, steel and rowan
offer prayers and incantations to gods old and new
when he barks the barking is brief, only three
but there is a power in three, in fathers, sons
and ghosts
*Cù-sìth (pronounced koo-shee) translates from Scottish Gaelic as ‘fairy dog’ or ‘hound of the fairies’. Legend has it that anyone who heard the third of the cù-sìth’s barks would die from sheer terror.
Roger David Smith is a teacher and writer from Caithness, in the far north of Scotland. He’s had poems and stories published in magazines such as Poetry Scotland, AEOS, Cutting Teeth, Prosetrics, The Madrid Review and The Ugly Review, amongst other places, and in anthologies such as Tantallon Tir’s Call of the Isles. You can find him on Twitter/X @justrandomwords, or on Instagram.