The cries and wing-beats of migrating birds, particularly geese, are sometimes taken to be the baying of superterrestrial spirits, a pack of spectral hounds, sometimes called 'sky yelpers', sometimes the gabriel ratchets. They were known as the 'Gabriel Hounds' in Lancashire, and were said to be monstrous dogs with human heads who travelled high up in the air. Brockie, quoted in County Folk-Lore (Vol.IV), says that sometimes they seem to hover over a house, and this foretells death or misfortune to the inmates. Lewis Spence, in The Fairy Tradition in Britain, calls them the Lancashire version of the yeth hounds and of the cwn annwn.

[Motif: G303.7.1.3]