This is a favorite image, originally from the Book of Kells, as best I know.
This piece is from the hand of Peter O'Loughlin, silversmith, that I picked up years ago from his booth on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley, CA.
I've read that the three-dogs-running symbolizes courage. I understand that; in the image, I see liveliness, perseverance, and no flinching. I wonder at letting-loose-the-dogs. I look at the pendant--at the photos now--and I smile, with the hint of a dog-tooth showing.
After I took the photos, I started reading around, pulling various books from the shelves, seeking just the right passage or passages to accompany the hounds.: W. B. Yeats' "On Baile's Strand," William Shakespeare's Macbeth, Seamus Heaney's translation of Beowulf, Marie Heaney's Over Nine Waves: A Book of Irish Legends, among others. (There's a John Montague poem that would fit best, but my volume of his collected poetry is on my desk at work just now.)
Cuchulain, of course, is a man-hound worth recalling, but here's a passage from Marie Heaney's "St. Patrick" that feels oddly fitting: no dogs, but also no flinching.
While Patrick was preaching in Munster, Aengus, the king of Cashel, became curious about the visitor and summoned him to his fort. Patrick preached the gospel and the king, believing in it, asked to be baptized. As Patrick blessed Aengus, the spike of his crozier went through the king's foot, but Aengus did not flinch. When the ceremony was over and Patrick saw the wound he had inflicted he was stricken with remorse.
"I didn't cry out or protest," Aengus explained, "for I thought the piercing was part of the ritual that I had to endure."
Heaney, Marie. Over Nine Waves: A Book of Irish Legends. Faber & Faber. London & Boston: 1995.
