Cur foxes aside, corgis don’t make any appearances in books about animals and dogs during this period. Perhaps the corgi fox was named after a similar-looking dog it shared its territory with, but if this was the case no one mentions it. If these corgis weren’t regularly culled, he writes, “the number of these animals would soon become intolerable.” This description was accepted well into the 1810s. According to Pennant, this corgi “lurks about hedges, out-houses” and is more dangerous to poultry than any other fox. But Pennant’s “corgi” isn’t a dog! He identifies the corgi as the “cur fox”-a small variety of fox with a black-tipped tail. In 1768, Welsh natural historian Thomas Pennant mentioned corgis in his study of British animals. As late as 1913, Welsh corgi owners were exhibiting their dogs at agricultural shows under the title of “Cur (Corgi).” Until relatively recently, this was the accepted English translation of the word. (I should note here that I am English, and monolingual.) William Salesbury’s 1574 English-Welsh dictionary translates korgi as “cur dog.” Dictionaries from the Georgian period (circa 1714–1837) also present corgi as a direct translation of “cur dog.” But they don’t make distinctions between the corgi and other curs (including sheepdogs). Although both countries are part of the United Kingdom, historically the English have marginalized the Welsh people and persecuted speakers of the indigenous Welsh language, which complicates the etymology. (Today’s corgis all carry at least one copy of a gene that causes a form of dwarfism.) Nor is there agreement about how the word developed. The corgi is a beloved Welsh national symbol, and corgi as a Welsh word for a dog is certainly several centuries old, but it’s not necessarily certain that the word was exclusively used to refer to dogs with shortened legs. Simone Ashley as Kate Sharma, Austin the corgi as Newton, and Charithra Chandran as Edwina Sharma in Season 2, Episode 2 of Bridgerton. In this case, it just makes it harder to find concrete answers to my corgi questions. An unshakable belief in the importance of breed history can result in harm to actual dogs, as when breeders dock dogs’ tails and crop their ears or breed in physical features that affect their animals’ quality of life in pursuit of their idea of what the breed is. A corgi enthusiast in 1946 writes a poem in the style of Longfellow’s Song of Hiawatha about fairies riding corgis, and several decades later it has mutated into an ancient Welsh “legend.” Lots of what someone with a casual-to-intense interest in dogs might know about the history of individual breeds isn’t supported by historical evidence-pugs, for example, probably did not come from China. One writer makes a claim (usually without citing their sources), and all subsequent histories repeat it, perhaps with slight variations, until it becomes accepted as fact. (There’s speculation they descend from short continental European dogs, brought to the country by the Vikings or by Flemish immigrants, but today’s corgis are most closely genetically related to other British herding dogs, like collies.) The problem with such breed histories is that they work like a game of telephone. But, intrigued by Newton’s appearance in Bridgerton, I’ve pursued the corgi, trotting through the historical archive.Īccording to corgi breeders’ lore, corgis have been bred in Wales since the medieval period. But I wondered-would people living during the Regency period (1811–20), when the show is loosely set, even recognize a Welsh herding dog with shortened legs as a distinct type of dog? Would they have called it a “corgi”? Would a dog owner ever keep a corgi as a companion rather than as a working animal? Until very recently, most of what I knew about corgis could be summed up in a phrase: extremely cute Welsh cattle-dogs beloved by Queen Elizabeth II. Bridgerton is not supposed to be accurate. I realized I’d never come across a corgi in my research. So to me, the breakout star of Bridgerton Season 2, heroine Kate Sharma’s dog, Newton (played endearingly by Austin the corgi), looked out of place. was about lapdogs in 18 th-century Britain (no, really). This is probably because I’m a lecturer in animal history, and my Ph.D. Some people notice anachronistic hairstyles or costume choices in period dramas - I notice the animals. This post contains spoilers for Bridgerton Season 2.
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