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.
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