During the long nights of winter, and especially about Christmastide, the inhabitants of Tower-hill, the Bordage, Fountain Street, and Cornet Street used to be roused from their midnight slumbers by hearing unearthly howlings and the clanking of heavy chains, dragged over the rough pavement. Those who could summon up courage enough to rise from their beds and peep out of window, declared that they saw the form of a huge uncouth animal with large flaming saucer eyes, and somewhat like a bear, or huge calf. This spectre was known as “Tchî-co, La Bête de la Tour.” EDITOR’S NOTES. See Pluquet in _Contes Populaires de Bayeux_, p. 16, for an account of a phantom in the shape of a great dog that wanders about the streets of Bayeux in the winter nights gnawing bones and dragging chains, called “Le Rongeur d’Os.” See also Sir Walter Scott’s note in _Peveril of the Peak_, Vol. II., Chap. I., on the spectral hound or “Mauthe Doog”--a large black spaniel, which used to haunt Peel Castle in the Isle of Man. There is also in Laisnel de la Salle’s book _Croyances et Légendes du Centre de la France_, Tome I. p. 181, a long story of “Le Loup Bron,” which in many respects resembles that of our “Bête de la Tour.” In Sark “they have another superstitious belief, that of the _Tchico_, or old dog, the dog of the dead, the black or white beast. Several affirm having seen it, and met it walking about the roads. This dog affects certain localities, and makes its regular rounds, but often it is invisible.” From _Descriptive Sketch of the Island of Sark_, by the Rev. J. L. V. Cachemaille, published in Clarke’s _Guernsey Magazine_, Vol. III., October. 1875. In Brand’s _Antiquities_, Vol. III., p. 330, he identifies the English “Barguest,” or “Great Dog Fiend,” with the Norman “Rongeur d’Os,” and the “Boggart” of Lancashire, great dog-spirits, which prowl about in the night-time, dragging heavy chains behind them. “LE CHIEN BÔDU.” This black dog was said to infest the Clos du Valle, and was probably a resident of the Ville Bôdu, which was at one time the slaughter-house of the Benedictine monks of St. Michel du Valle. To see him was taken as a sure sign of approaching death. According to Mr. Métivier, he derived his name from “the German Bohdu, and Gaulish Bodu, which mean the _Abyss_, and the mythological dog of Hades is our ‘Chien Bôdu.’” EDITOR’S NOTE.--In _Croyances et Légendes du Centre de la France_ Laisnel de la Salle has a chapter (Tome I. pp. 168-175), on “La Chasse a _Bôdet_,” which he describes as “une chasse nocturne qui traverse les airs avec des hurlements, des mieulements et des abois epouvantables, auxquels se mêlent des cris de menace et des accents d’angoisse,” and he identifies (p. 172), “Bôdet” with the German _Woden_, who is the same as the Scandinavian Odin, Gwyon of the Gauls, the Egyptian Thot, Hermes of the Greeks, and Mercury of the Latins, who filled, in the Teutonic Mythology, the rôle of “Conductor of Souls.”