[6][7] The English topographer and poet George Waldron seems to be the sole definitive written authority of this folklore localized in the castle.
[3] Waldron transcribes the original Manx name "Moddey Dhoo" as "Mauthe Doog", and describes the dog thus: They say, that an apparition called, in their language, the Mauthe Doog, in the shape of a large black spaniel with curled shaggy hair, was used to haunt Peel Castle; and has been frequently seen in every room, but particularly in the guard-chamber, where, as soon as candles were lighted, it came and lay down before the fire in presence of all the soldiers, who at length, by being so much accustomed to the sight of it, lost great part of the terror they were seized with at its first appearance.
Some noises were heard, the adventurer returned to the guard-room, ghastly frightened, unable to share the story of what he had seen, and died three days later.
William Walter Gill (d. 1963), has preserved some of the local lore regarding the Black Dog appearing around the Manx landscape, as well as firsthand eyewitness accounts: A field near Ballamodda, near a field named Robin y Gate, "Robin of the Road," was haunted by an "ordinary moddey dhoo," as opposed to Ballagilbert Glen (aka Kinlye's Glen), where stood a farmhouse on the east side, and in the lane leading to it "lurked a moddey dhoo, headless like that at Hango".
A Moddey Dhoo features in Tom Siddell's Gunnerkrigg Court as a psychopomp, one of the many spirit guides that assist the dead with their transition.