Gabriel Hounds or Gabble Retchets are a pack of spectral hounds said to be haunting Britain during the Wild Hunt.
Origin
The Wild Hunt.was often accompanied by the baying of hounds. Sometimes other sounds could be misinterpreted.
The cries and wing-beats of birds are sometimes mistaken to be the baying of super terrestrial spirits or ghosts, a pack of spectral hounds, sometimes called sky yelpers, sometimes the Gabriel Ratchets.
Etimology
Ratchet is the archaic term to describe a hound hunting by scent.
Description
The dogs was known as the Gabriel Hounds in Lancashire.
The pack was described as monstrous dogs with human heads who travelled flying in the air.
When the hounds were seen hovering on a house, it would foretell death or misfortune to its inhabitants.
See Also
Bran and Sgeolan, Fionn Mac Cumhal’s hounds in Celtic lore; Cwn Annwn, or Hounds of Hell; Cusith, the fairy dog; Devil's Dandy Dogs, or Dando Dogs; Hounds of the Hills; The Fairy Raed; The Norse Wild Hunt; Sluagh or Fairy Host; The Wild Hunt; Wandering Jew