Wisht Hounds

Overview
The Wisht or Wish Hounds (wisht is a dialect word for "ghostly" or "haunted") are a phenomenon related to the Yeth Hound. Some folklorists even regard them as identical to the Yeth Hound. Wistman's Wood on Dartmoor in southern Devon is said to be the home of the Wisht Hounds as they make their hunting forays across the moor. The road known as the Abbot's Way and the valley of the Dewerstone are favoured haunts of the hounds. Their huntsman is presumably the Devil, and it is said that any dog that hears the crying of the hounds will die. One legend states that the ghost of Sir Francis Drake sometimes

drove a black hearse coach on the road between Tavistock and Plymouth at night, drawn by headless horses and accompanied by demons and a pack of headless yelping hounds. Charles Hardwick notes that black coach legends are "relatively modernised versions" of Wild Hunt and Furious Host traditions. Robert Hunt further defines whish or whisht as "a common term for that weird sorrow which is associated with mysterious causes".