338 
Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 
be big and strong and courageous, and able for any of the larger game. 
The interesting part of this explanation is that pointing to the French 
or English origin of the dogs known as lehreles, which not merely 
confirms Stevens, but also supports Bowles, and furthermore shows 
that the fact must have been notorious of the bringing of these dogs 
from abroad into Spain during the l7th and 18th centuries, and it may 
be supposed, during the 16th. 
In the remarkable work, L' Origine du Frangais, vol. ii., p. 292 
(by the Abbe J. Espagnolle, Paris, 1888), he gives the following details 
as to the word — " Loup-garou, = vere-ivolf^ Anglo-Saxon ; XvyKovpiov = 
urine du lynx. Le mot XvyKovpiov a ete prononge diversement suivant 
les pays ; on en a fait leu-warou; loup-herrou ; loup-brou; warou; garou; 
loucarou ; comme loup se pronon9ait leu dans notre vieille langue, il y 
a eu confusion entre leu = loup, et la premiere syllabe de XvyKovpiov, 
Xvy$, car en realite le lupus latin n'a rien a voir dans le loup garou 
bieii que nom y soit. Le loup-cervier est encore le XvyKovptov grec ou 
plutot le XvyKapLov eolian, avec le digamma XvKap-Fiov.'' Comparing 
the form loup-hrou, = leu-hrou, with the Portuguese lehreo, = lelre, - 
Spanish lehrel, it may be taken that the word lehrel really meant 
originally a lynx or loup-cervier. Hence the perro lehrel mentioned by 
Bowles would really mean a wolf-dog. 
The conclusion may therefore be drawn that during the centuries 
mentioned dogs were imported from France, England, or Ireland for 
either hunting the wolf or for protecting herds of swine when out 
feeding on acorns in forest districts where wolves abound, such as the 
Pyrenees. 
The seeming confusion in the renderings of the words lehrel and 
galgo may have arisen from the circumstance of two classes of dogs 
being used against the wolf, both necessarily large, strong, and coura- 
geous. The one used by sportsmen for hunting that animal, the Irish 
wolf-dog, being known in Spain by the term lehrel, probably by reason 
of his lithe form and likeness in shape to the greyhound proper. The 
other, a herd's or shepherd's dog, which, according to Fiorentino, was 
the lehrel; but he also gives for mastin, a shepherd's dog; so that, in 
this respect lehrel = mastin. l!*[ow, E'eumann gives for wolf-dog 
mastin, which is also old French for matin = mastiff, the Irish for 
which is maistin, and Portuguese mastim, also explained as lelre, = 
wolf-dog. Thus it would appear that the mastin = mastiff, was used 
as the shepherd's dog in protecting his herds against the wolf on the 
Continent, It is worth citing that, in the Dictionnaire Universel de M. 
Boiste (1823), matin is explained, gros chien ; molossus. The term 
