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And a terrible thing from the cliff did spring
and would bark around thrill'd,
His eyes had the glow of lights below
It was in the form of the ghost dog

One of the most glaring signs of death in English folklore is the major spectral demon dog called Black Shuck. A death omen comes for the souls and if you have the misfortune to see Black Shuck – expect death to come within one year.

Ghostly black dogs are distinguished from regular meat and blood black dogs because their eyes glow yellow or red (sometimes only one), and their ability to fall from the sky, or in and out of bounds. The devil dog is the size of a calf and sometimes even appears headless!

Black Shuck is the place where his victims his bone-Chilling screams claim can be heard rising above the wind. His feet make no noise, but people could breathe on their necks.

A common place to see the black dog is on a boundary. He hides where people from one place to another, roads, footpaths, old roads, bridges, crossroads, gates, doors, staircases and corridors. It can be seen near graveyards and barrows along the ley lines, and run Corpse Ways or Spirit Paths. Folklore tells us that these ancient paths used for churches and minds would go to them for cemetery cemetery.

In the 1890s, a teenager saved North Sea told how he was forced to swim farther and farther from shore by a huge dog who driven by water, gnashing of teeth in the neck and shoulders. In the 1920's and 30 fishermen off Sheringham told of hearing the dog screams in the night's storm. And as recently as the 1970s, he was seen knocking on the beach at Yarmouth.

Black Shuck is not confined to Norfolk. Another location is along the Sussex Downs with its old burial mounds, once the primary means of travel to the Weald has been cleared of its Impenetrable Forest. And once, an afternoon summer 1577, he made a fateful trip across the border in Suffolk and the church was St Mary's Church in Bungay. As terrible dog flew from the church, saturated with blood, he would have left deep scorch marks on the door.

In 1933, the door was cleaned and burns were there for everyone. They remain to this day.

There are many names for this terrible visitor. Galleytrot, Shug Monkey, the hateful thing, Hell beast, or Skeff Moddey and Dhoo in southern England, you hear names like yeth or Wish Hounds. In Yorkshire, it is known as The Barguest.

The name Shuck seems to go back to Old – English (at least pre-1000 BCE). The epic poem Old English Beowulf describes the monster Grendel and his mother. Grendel is called a Scucca (demon) – and is pronounced almost Scucc then as it is now. The poem also says of Grendel that lie Eagum stod unfaeger leoht gelicost "fire-like, baleful light shone from his eyes, sounds like the Black Shuck me.

The origin of the black dog lost in the mists of time, but probably comes from the Vikings, who feared that the dog of their god Odin All-Father, and brought their stories and surrender to England. Barguest The word comes from the German "Bargeist meaning" spirit of the burial () Beer.

In the folklore of old Europe, the dog given the consumer and guardian spirits of the dead, as in the "Wild Hunt", where pack of dogs with a master of the hunt flies through the air in search of lost souls. He returned to Egypt, Siberia and North America. According Vedic mythology of ancient India, the death must go through the eyes of four dogs of Yama, the king of the dead, and Greek mythology tells the dog Cerberos by people with three heads that guards the entrance to Hades and the Egyptian Anubis, with the head of a dog. The Celts their legends also, white, red-eared dogs. But the concept of underground observatory has reached its full expression and the most complex among Germanic peoples.

Whatever the origin of the black dog, beware of him, he is still in the wild lonely places of North England today.

About The Author

Susanna Duffy is a Civil Celebrant, folklorist and storyteller who creates rites and ceremonies for the milestones of life.

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