"For
he was speechless, ghastly, wan,
Like him of whom the story ran,
Who spoke the spectre hound in man."
Sir Walter Scott, The lay of the last minstrel, Canto VI, v.26.
Why is the death-hound of Arthur Conan Doyle's
The Hound of the Baskervilles such a vigorous archetypal beast?
Conan Doyle's inspiration was the folk tale of a phantom black dog on Dartmoor.
Such beasts recur throughout Britain, with almost every county having at least
one example. A typical reference appears in the Rev Worthington-Smith's book
on the folklore of Dunstable, published in 1910:
'Another belief is that there are ghostly
black dogs, the size of large retrievers, about the fields at night, that these
dogs are generally near gates and stiles, and are of such a forbidding aspect
that no one dare venture to pass them, and that it means death to shout at them.
In some places the spectral dog is named "Shuck" and is said to be headless.'
[1]
It is interesting that Worthington-Smith refers
to the name 'Shuck'. I doubt that this is a name normally used in Dunstable,
as this is normally associated with Norfolk, where the reference is more typically
to 'Old Shuck'. In Suffolk the black dog becomes 'Old Shock' (both these probably
derive from the Old English scucca, meaning 'demon').
In the Quantock Hills of Somerset the black
dog was frequently seen and called the 'Gurt Dog'. Cornwall has various tales
of the 'Devil's Dandy (or Dando) Dogs', Devon has the 'Yeth (Heath) or Wisht
Hounds. Other local names include Barguest, Black Shag, Padfoot or Hooter. Just
to be different, in West Yorkshire the common name is 'Guytrash'; in Lancashire
this is reduced to 'Trash' or changed to 'Skriker'. Further afield, a particularly
unpleasant phantom pooch frequented Peel Castle on the Isle of Man in the seventeenth
century and was known as the Moddey Dhoo, or Mauthe Doog. In Ireland we hear
of the Pooka.
Although Theo Brown produced a detailed and
useful survey of black dog lore in a Folklore article of 1958 [2]
she went on to collect considerably more material, although was unable to collate
it into publishable form by the time of her death last year [3].
In the Mercian area there are at least seven
examples for Warwickshire alone:
At Alveston, Charles Walton, a ploughboy,
met a phantom black dog on his way home on nine successive evenings. On the
final occasion a headless lady in a silk gown rushed past him, and the following
day he heard of his sister's death. [4]
The apparition of a tall lady with a large
black dog at her side has been seen Pickerings Barn in Brailes. [5]
During the Second World War at Brook House,
Snitterfield (which used to be the Bell Brook Inn) a big black dog was seen.
It ran over the tilled earth of the garden without leaving footprints. [6] Very
old people of Warwick used to say that the castle was haunted by a black dog.
The tale has the hallmarks of a time-encrusted tall story. The local version
claims it all started when an old retainer there, a woman called Moll Bloxham,
sold milk and butter from the castle stores for her personal gain. One Christmas
she overdid this, and the then Earl of Warwick, getting wind of it, stopped
her source of supply. Furiously angry, she vowed she would 'get them haunted'.
She apparently succeeded and returned in the form of a big black dog. In due
course the clergy were called in to exorcise the ghost with bell, book and candle,
but for a time they were entirely unsuccessful. Then one day, so it was said,
a huge black dog sprang from Caesar's Tower into the river below, and so ended
the ghost story. [7]
A black dog with a matted, shaggy coat and
green eyes roams in Whitmore Park at night. Local people avoided the area, since
to see the dog means a death in the family [8].
Meon Hill has both a phantom black dog and
a ghostly pack of white hounds. The death of George Walton in very curious circumstances
on 14th February 1945 was accompanied by a black dog being hung in a nearby
tree. Walton had seen a black dog on nine occasions - the last time it changed
into a headless black woman. His sister died shortly after. Although strongly
contested, Walton's death has many overtones of the ritual sacrifice of a 'cunning
man'.
In Nottinghamshire only one black dog story
is known. A manuscript dating to 1952 in Nottingham County Library records the
words of Mrs. Smalley who was then about 75 years old. 'Her grandfather, who
was born in 1804 and died in 1888, used to have occasion to drive from Southwell
to Bathley [near South Muskham] in a pony and trap. This involved going along
Crow Lane, which leaves South Muskham opposite the school and goes to Bathley.
Frequently, along that lane he saw a black dog trotting alongside his trap.
Round about 1915 his great-grandson, Mrs. Smalley's son Sidney, used to ride
out from Newark on a motorcycle to their home at Bathley. He went into Newark
to dances and frequently returned at about 11 o'clock at night. He too often
saw a black dog in Crow lane; he sometimes tried to run over it but was never
able to. One night Sidney took his father on the back of the motorcycle especially
to see the dog, and both of them saw it.' [9]
Moving across to Lincolnshire there are a
number of examples. The two best known appear in Ethel Rudkin's book [10]. 'The
road up to Moortown House was haunted by a big black dog that always disappeared
into the hedge at the same place.' And at Blyborough 'The Black Dog has been
seen near the Fish Pond and near the "Old Yard"'. However Rudkin's 1938 article
in Folklore [11] lists a much greater number - by 1958 there were
47 separate black dog localities in Lincolnshire [12].
In 1127 a rapacious Abbot called Henry of
Poitou was appointed to Peterborough Abbey. The chronicler of the day records
'tat as soon as he came there . . . the soon afterwards many people saw and
heard many hunters hunting. The hunters were black and big and loathsome, and
their hounds all black and wide-eyed and loathsome, and they rode on black horses
and black goats.' Such a wild hunt was reported at a similar time in the Welsh
Marches by Walter Map, writing about 1190. Walter map also gave us the legend
of Wild Edric in the Clun area of the Marches. As late as last century Edric
was said to haunt the hills around Church Stretton - in the form of a huge black
dog. [13]
Such packs of spectral hounds - with or without
hunters - have been seen all over Europe, and are generally known as the Gabriel
Hounds or Gabble Retchets in Britain, and as the Wild Hunt in Germany and Woden's
Hunt in Scandinavia. They are similar to the Seven Whistlers in that they were
a portent of death or disaster. Perhaps the association with Gabriel and an
old word for 'corpse'. Clearly, these wild hunts also like with the Welsh tales
of Cwm Annwn, the spectral hunt, and even with the Wandering Jew folklore which
is known throughout Europe. To what extent all these sky-traversing hounds are
the last vestiges of a complex and ancient cosmological mythology is a matter
for academic debate. I will just observe here that as far away as the New World
the Cherokee Indians refer to the Milky Way as 'Where the dog ran'. A dog which
ran from a corn mill in the south towards the north, dropping meal as he ran,
is given as the origin of the Milky Way in Scandinavian legends too [14]
I know of no examples of phantom black dogs
in Leicestershire and Rutland and only circumstantial accounts of one at Retford,
Nottinghamshire.
Although a country-wide survey would extend
well beyond the confines of this article - indeed beyond the whole issue of
Mercian Mysteries - I will venture to mention two examples from
West Yorkshire which might not be more widely known.
In Thornton, near Bradford, Jim Craven Well
(104:SE1033) was the haunt of the ghost of 'Peggy wi't Lantern' and 'Bloody
Tongue', a great dog with red eyes and a huge tail. The well is now lost [15].
A spectral hound with large glowing red eyes
traditionally haunts Helliwell Banks Well, Baildon (104:16103962; now capped
over) and the nearby Slaughter Lane. Several other wells in West Yorkshire are
associated with the 'Guytrash' which takes the form of a large shaggy dog with
broad webbed feet. It has drooping 'saucer' eyes and walks with a splashing
sound (the 'trash' sound of old-fashioned boots) [16]
Folklore also tells us of some dramatic consequences
resulting from the sighting of black dogs.
Somerset has a black dog which appeared in
1960 to two people - who both died soon after. East Anglia, Essex and Buckinghamshire
all have examples of phantom dogs which disappeared in dramatic flashes, in
one case burning to death a farmer, his horse and wagon.
left:
Bungay weathervane.
On Sunday 4th August 1577 an extremely violent
thunderstorm shook the church of Bungay, Suffolk. A fearful-looking black dog
appeared inside the church, in front of the parishioners. Two who were touched
by the animal were instantly killed and a third shriveled up like a drawn purse.
On the same day a similar hound appeared in the church at Blythburgh, seven
miles away, also killing three people and 'blasting' others. The market's weathervane
depicts the fiendish hound. Other such devastating apparitions had been recorded,
for sometime before 1613 a bull-like creature manifested inside the church at
Great Chart in Kent, leaving a trail of dead and seriously injured, before demolishing
part of a wall and disappearing. [17; 18]
As a link in to my article elsewhere in this
issue on the mythology of dogs, I will draw upon just a few examples most relevant
to Earth mysteries. In Wiltshire, Bishops Canning, has a black dog legend associated
with a stile into the churchyard and a possible ley - and 40 or so other black
dogs are also recorded for that county alone [19].
Theo Brown states bluntly: 'Roads. These seem
to be the natural home of Black Dogs. I have at least 55 examples of these .
. . In addition to the above, there are nine haunting bridges. Numerically it
looks as though the emphasis is on the man-made road being guarded, rather than
the natural stream.' [20]
Other writers have speculated on the links
between these phantom black dogs and leys. Janet and Colin Bord, in a chapter
of Alien animals giving a comprehensive account of phantom dogs,
show that a number of such sightings occur in places - such as churchyards and
barrows - which are Watkins-style 'ley markers' and have a list of four tentative
alignments in Lincolnshire which are associated with black dog sightings (Algakirk;
Northorpe; North Kelsey; Blyborough) [21].
I am indebted to a number of friends for responding
to my request for information on phantom black dog legends; in particular Jeremy
Harte and also Pat Bradford, Janet Bord, Bob Dickinson, Frank Earp and John
Michell.
1: Rev Worthington-Smith, Dunstable
and its surrounds, 1910.
2: Theo Brown, 'The black dog', Folklore, Sept 1958 p175-192.
3: Her notes are now deposited with University of Exeter library. I can only
hope that sooner rather than later a post-graduate student obtains funding to
compile these into a publishable book.
4: Roy Palmer, The folklore of Warwickshire, Batsford, 1976.
5: Alfred Woodward, Memories of Brailes, Peter Drinkwater, 1988.
6: Palmer, op. cit.
7: David Green, A Warwickshire Christmas, Alan Sutton, 1980.
8: Palmer, op. cit.
9: Nottingham County Library MS; information kindly supplied by Frank Earp.
10: Ethel H. Rudkin, Lincolnshire folklore, Beltons, 1936.
11: Ethel H. Rudkin, 'The black dog', Folklore, June 1938, p111-113
12: Brown, op. cit.
13: Jennifer Westwood, Albion - a guide to legendary Britain, Granada,
1985
14: G. de Santillana and H. von Dechend, Hamlet's mill Macmillan
1970
15: Val Shepherd, Historic wells in and around Bradford, Heart
of Albion Press, 1994; citing T. Mackenzie, Bronte moors and villages,
1923.
16: Shepherd, op. cit.
17: John Michell and Bob Rickard, Phenomena: a book of wonders,
Thames and Hudson 1977.
18: Westwood, op. cit.
19: John Michell, Earthspirit, Thames and Hudson, 1975; citing
Kathleen Wiltshire, Ghosts and legends of the Wiltshire countryside,
Salisbury, 1973.
20: Brown, op. cit.
21: Janet and Colin Bord, Alien animals
Just when I thought I'd got to grips with
just about everything worthwhile on the subject, up barks Peter Jenning's article
on Black Shuck legends in the latest Gippeswic [1].
In addition to some more examples of black
dog apparitions in East Anglia, two very interesting ideas emerge from this
survey. Jennings notes that black dog sightings seem to be especially prevalent
in East Anglia and the Yorkshire east coast - areas which were heavily settled
by Scandinavians from the seventh century. A link with Norse traditions does,
of course, fit in well with the mythology discussed by Alby Stone and myself
in our articles. Personally, I would want to make a more accurate assessment
of the distribution before making such an assertion - there are, after all,
many examples too from other regions and counties with plenty of recorded examples
of black dogs are usually simply those where a folklorist has been particularly
active.
One other snippet of speculation more strongly
suggests Scandinavian associations. As I have noted, black dogs appear under
a variety of regional names. One such is 'barguest', prevalent in parts of Yorkshire.
Peter Jennings reports that Sir Walter Scott suggested that this appellation
came from the German bargeist, 'spirit of the (funeral) bier'. Now
that really does fit in exceptionally well with the 'guardian of the corpse
ways' concept. Many thanks Peter for drawing attention to this - even if you
would prefer to see the origin as implying some sort of guardian spirit who
'bars' unwanted 'guests' (though, that too, has strongly liminal associations).
On a lighter note, Jennings informs us that
in Suffolk there is a Black Shuck Borderline Morris team. Is the 'borderline'
aspect merely an unconsciously affirmation of the liminal role of the Shuck
mythos?
1: Gippeswic No.9, June 1994,
GBP1.75 from 42 Cemetery Road, Ipswich, IP4 2JA
Originally published in Mercian Mysteries
No.20 August 1994.
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