Friday, 24 March 2017

Black Shuck




Black Shuck is the name of a ghost dog that roams Norfolk, Suffolk, and other parts of England. It is a large, black canine with flaming red or green eyes, or sometimes just one eye in the middle of its head. If those eyes catch your gaze directly, you are doomed to death within a year. There are various origin stories for the dog, which was first reported seen in 1577. Black Shuck may have been the inspiration for Arthur Conan Doyle's Hound of the Baskervilles.

In my opinion large hounds throughout legend prey upon human victims for a reason, perhaps hounds, a creature which is physically superior to humans, can attack and fatally wound humans if they deem it necessary; thus could the hound be a philosophical judge of the human condition.
Black Shuck, Old Shuck, Old Shock or simply Shuck is the name given to a ghostly black dog which is said to roam the coastline and countryside of East Anglia. Accounts of the animal form part of the folklore of Norfolk, Suffolk, the Cambridgeshire fens and Essex.
I was interested to find a case study of a legendary canine beast with local relevance to my studies, in doing so I came across the Black Shuck, supposedly sighted around East Anglia.
The name Shuck may derive from the Old English word scucca meaning "demon", or possibly from the local dialect word shuck meaning "shaggy" or "hairy".
Black Shuck is one of many ghostly black dogs recorded across the British Isles. Sometimes recorded as an omen of death, sometimes a more companionable animal, it is classified as a cryptid, and there are varying accounts of the animal's appearance. Writing in 1877, Walter Rye stated that Shuck was "the most curious of our local apparitions, as they are no doubt varieties of the same animal.
Its alleged appearance in 1577 at Bungay and Blythburgh is a particularly famous account of the beast, and images of black sinister dogs have become part of the iconography of the area and have appeared in popular culture.
Folklore
For centuries, inhabitants of England have told tales of a large black dog with malevolent flaming eyes (or in some variants of the legend a single eye) that are red or alternatively green. They are described as being 'like saucers'. According to reports, the beast varies in size and stature from that of simply a large dog to being the size of a calf or even a horse. Sometimes Black Shuck is recorded as having appeared headless, and at other times as floating on a carpet of mist.
According to folklore, the spectre haunts the landscapes of East Anglia, primarily coastline, graveyards, sideroads, crossroads, bodies of water and dark forests. W. A. Dutt, in his 1901 Highways & Byways in East Anglia describes the creature thus:
He takes the form of a huge black dog, and prowls along dark lanes and lonesome field footpaths, where, although his howling makes the hearer's blood run cold, his footfalls make no sound. You may know him at once, should you see him, by his fiery eye; he has but one, and that, like the Cyclops', is in the middle of his head. But such an encounter might bring you the worst of luck: it is even said that to meet him is to be warned that your death will occur before the end of the year. So you will do well to shut your eyes if you hear him howling; shut them even if you are uncertain whether it is the dog fiend or the voice of the wind you hear. Should you never set eyes on our Norfolk Snarleyow you may perhaps doubt his existence, and, like other learned folks, tell us that his story is nothing but the old Scandinavian myth of the black hound of Odin, brought to us by the Vikings who long ago settled down on the Norfolk coast.
It is Dutt's description which gave rise to one misnomer for Black Shuck as "Old Snarleyow"; in the context of his description it is a comparative to Frederick Marryat's 1837 novel Snarleyyow, or the Dog Fiend, which tells the tale of a troublesome ship's dog.
According to some legends, the dog's appearance bodes ill to the beholder - for example in the Maldon and Dengie area of Essex, the most southerly point of sightings, where seeing Black Shuck means the observer's almost immediate death. However, more often than not, stories tell of Black Shuck terrifying his victims, but leaving them alone to continue living normal lives; in some cases it has supposedly happened before close relatives to the observer die or become ill.
By contrast, in other tales the animal is regarded as relatively benign and said to accompany women on their way home in the role of protector rather than a portent of ill omen. Some black dogs have been said to help lost travellers find their way home and are more often helpful than threatening; Sherwood notes that benign accounts of the dog become more regular towards the end of the 19th and throughout the 20th centuries.
Below , title page of Rev. Abraham Fleming's account of the appearance of the ghostly black dog "Black Shuck" at the church of Bungay, Suffolk: "A straunge, and terrible wunder wrought very late in the parish church of Bongay: a town of no great distance from the citie of Norwich, namely the fourth of this August, in ye yeere of our Lord 1577".


Is this the skeleton of legendary devil dog Black Shuck who terrorised 16th century East Anglia? Folklore tells of SEVEN FOOT hell hound with flaming eyes
  • According to folklore, Black Shuck terrorised East Anglia in 16th century
  • He towered at seven feet tall, with flaming red eyes and shaggy black hair
  • Now, remains of legendary hound may have been unearthed during a dig
  • Bones found by archeologists among ruins at Leiston Abbey in Suffolk
  • They belong to 'male dog', standing at seven feet tall and weighing 200lbs
  • Experts are currently carrying out radio carbon dating tests on remains
By Paul Harris for the Daily Mail
Published: 16:30, 15 May 2014 | Updated: 01:28, 16 May 2014


These remains of a giant dog were found during a dig among the ruins of Leiston Abbey in Suffolk
Yesterday, 500 years after Black Shuck first went on the prowl, archaeologists were examining the skeleton of a 7ft long dog unearthed in the remains of an ancient abbey.
It was discovered a few miles from two churches where Black Shuck is said to have killed worshippers during an almighty thunderstorm in August 1577.
What’s more, it appears to have been buried in a shallow grave at precisely the same time as Shuck is said to have been on the loose, primarily around Suffolk and the East Anglia region.
Experts will subject the bones and surrounding material to 21st century dating techniques.
But first, the legend. The beast’s most celebrated attack began at Holy Trinity church, Blythburgh. A clap of thunder burst open the church doors and a hairy black ‘devil dog’ came snarling in.
It ran through the congregation, killing a man and boy and causing the church steeple to fall through the roof. Scorch marks still visible on the church doors are purported to have come from Shuck’s claws as it fled.
Local verse records the event thus: ‘All down the church in the midst of fire, the hellish monster flew, and, passing onward to the quire, he many people slew.’
Next stop was 12 miles away in Bungay, where two worshippers were killed at St Mary’s church. One was left shrivelled ‘like a drawn purse’ as he prayed.
The bones uncovered in the ruins of Leiston Abbey, Suffolk, were first found by archaeological group Dig Ventures in a project last year.
'The story of Black Shuck has to have originated from somewhere and, who knows, it could have originated from the dog which was buried here'
Brendon Wilkins

Painstaking work revealed the skeleton of an extremely large dog.
Estimates suggest it would have weighed more than 14 stone and stood 7ft tall on its hind legs.
The grave was less than 20 inches deep and unmarked. Pottery fragments found at the same level date from the height of Shuck’s alleged reign.
Radio carbon dating tests will now give an exact age for the bones, results that will serve either to enhance the shaggy dog stories – or perhaps to support the far less entertaining theory that here lies a 16th century abbot’s beloved old hunting dog.





No comments:

Post a Comment