Black Shuck



Black Shuck, Old Shuck, Old Shock or simply Shuck is the name given to an East Anglian ghostly black dog which is said to roam the coastline and countryside of East Anglia, one of many ghostly black dogs recorded in folklore across the British Isles. Accounts of Black Shuck form part of the folklore of Norfolk, Suffolk, the Cambridgeshire fens and Essex, and descriptions of the creature's appearance and nature vary considerably; it is sometimes recorded as an omen of death, but, in other instances, is described as companionable.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the name Shuck derives from the Old English word scucca - "devil, fiend", from the root word skuh- to terrify. The first mention in print of "Black Shuck" is by Reverend E.S. Taylor in an 1850 edition of the journal Notes and Queries which describes "Shuck the Dog-fiend"; "This phantom I have heard many persons in East Norfolk, and even Cambridgeshire, describe as having seen as a black shaggy dog, with fiery eyes and of immense size, and who visits churchyards at midnight."

Abraham Fleming's account of the appearance of A strange, and terrible wunder in 1577 at Bungay, Suffolk is a famous account of the beast. Images of black sinister dogs have become part of the iconography of the area and have appeared in popular culture. 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."

Descriptions
Descriptions of Black Shuck vary in both shape and size, from that of a large dog to being the size of a calf or horse. 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."

Dr Simon Sherwood suggests that the earliest surviving description of devilish black hounds is an account of an incident in the Peterborough Abbey recorded in the Peterborough Chronicle (one version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle) around 1127: "Let no-one be surprised at the truth of what we are about to relate, for it was common knowledge throughout the whole country that immediately after [Abbot Henry of Poitou's arrival at Peterborough Abbey] - it was the Sunday when they sing Exurge Quare - many men both saw and heard a great number of huntsmen hunting. The huntsmen were black, huge and hideous, and rode on black horses and on black he-goats and the hounds were jet black with eyes like saucers and horrible. This was seen in the very deer park of the town of Peterborough and in all the woods that stretch from that same town to Stamford, and in the night the monks heard them sounding and winding their horns. Reliable witnesses who kept watch in the night declared that there might well have been as many as twenty or thirty of them winding their horns as near they could tell. This was seen and heard from the time of his arrival all through Lent and right up to Easter.""

This account also appears to describe the Europe-wide phenomenon of a Wild Hunt.

Bungay and Blythburgh
One of the most notable reports of Black Shuck is of his appearance at the churches of Bungay and Blythburgh in Suffolk. On 4 August 1577, at Blythburgh, Black Shuck is said to have burst in through the doors of Holy Trinity Church to a clap of thunder. He ran up the nave, past a large congregation, killing a man and boy and causing the church steeple to collapse through the roof. As the dog left, he left scorch marks on the north door which can be seen at the church to this day.

The encounter on the same day at St Mary's Church, Bungay was described in A Straunge and Terrible Wunder by Abraham Fleming in 1577: "This black dog, or the divel in such a linenesse (God hee knoweth al who worketh all,) running all along down the body of the church with great swiftnesse, and incredible haste, among the people, in a visible fourm and shape, passed between two persons, as they were kneeling uppon their knees, and occupied in prayer as it seemed, wrung the necks of them bothe at one instant clene backward, in somuch that even at a mome[n]t where they kneeled, they stra[n]gely dyed."

Fleming was a translator and editor for several printing houses in London, and therefore probably only published his account based on exaggerated oral accounts. Other local accounts attribute the event to the Devil (Fleming calls the animal "the Divel in such a likeness"). The scorch marks on the door are referred to by the locals as "the devil’s fingerprints", and the event is remembered in this verse:

"All down the church in midst of fire, the hellish monster flew, and, passing onward to the quire, he many people slew."

Dr David Waldron and Christopher Reeve suggest that a fierce electrical storm recorded by contemporary accounts on that date, coupled with the trauma of the ongoing Reformation, may have led to the accounts entering folklore.

Littleport
Littleport, Cambridgeshire is home to two different legends of spectral black dogs, which have been linked to the Black Shuck folklore, but differ in significant aspects: local folklorist W.H. Barrett relates the story of a huge black dog haunting the area after being killed rescuing a local girl from a lustful friar in pre-reformation times,  while fellow folklorist Enid Porter relates stories of a black dog haunting the A10 road after its owner drowned in the nearby River Great Ouse in the 1800s.

Leiston Abbey excavation
In May 2014 a large dog was excavated at Leiston Abbey by DigVentures which was noted in the parish newsletter and then in the East Anglian Daily Times which ran a tongue-in-cheek article asking whether they were the remains of Black Shuck. The article in the East Anglian was then picked up by the Daily Mail which reported that Black Shuck was 7 ft tall, a figure they also used describing the skeleton which, they said, would have "stood 7ft tall on its hind legs". The International Business Times and Yahoo! News both reported the skeleton to be Black Shuck.

DigVentures itself unequivocally denied claims that the dog was Black Shuck, stating that it was 72 cm tall, around the size of a mastiff. Carbon dating of the bones "indicated a date of either 1650-1690, 1730-1810 or post 1920" and the animal "was likely to have been interred when there was no surface trace of the original building remaining".

East Anglian poet and songwriter, Martin Newell, wrote about the discovery and retold some of the stories he heard from locals while preparing his epic poem, Black Shuck: The Ghost Dog of Eastern England:

In popular culture
British rock band The Darkness have a song called "Black Shuck" on their 2003 debut album Permission to Land

British rock band Down I Go have a song called "Black Shuck" on their 2019 EP 'All Down the Church in Midst of Fire the Hellish Monster Flew, and Passing Onward to the Quire, He Many People Slew'.

In June 2019, after being previously crowdfunded on Kickstarter, the graphic novel The Burning Black: Legend of Black Shuck was published by Renegade Arts Entertainment. The book was written by Mark Allard-Will, with artwork by Ryan Howe and lettering by Elaine M. Will. The graphic novel features Black Shuck as its central antagonist.

The 2019 movie Annabelle Comes Home features a Black Shuck as one of the spirits revived by the demonic doll.

The popular writing collaboration The SCP Foundation has a file on a creature, SCP-023, which is based on the Black Shuck's infamous Bungay incident.

In modified form, the Black Shuck is described by J. K. Rowling in her 1999 novel Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, where Harry's godfather Sirius Black, who is an Animagus, changes into the shape of a large black dog which, at the beginning of the book, is said to be "The Grim", an omen of imminent death to those who see it.