The tale of Black Shuck

Sightings of large, black creatures wandering the East Anglian countryside today are often put down to wild pumas - but in years gone by they could have signalled the appearance of a far more evil visitor - Black Shuck!

The weather vane at bungay depicting Black Shuck.

Ghost hunters long to track down a spectre, but there is one spooky image they hope never to come face-to-face with. Black Shuck, the hell hound reputed to roam the East Anglian coastline, is said to bring death within the year to anyone who dares to look into his flaming eyes.

The Black Dog is a name usually given to public houses - conjuring up images of a faithful hound at his master's side. However, the name more likely signifies a snarling red-eyed hound from Hell or 'Black Shuck' as recorded in this old Norfolk saying:

And a dreadful thing from the cliff did spring,
and its wild bark thrill'd around,
His eyes had the glow of the fires below,
'twas the form of the spectre hound

For centuries this fearsome reputation has brought terror to any man, woman or child who has spied a large, black dog wandering along the lonely country roads or shoreline.

In the 1890s, a teenage boy rescued from the North Sea told how he had been forced to swim further and further from the shore by a huge dog that chased him through the waters, its teeth gnashing at his neck and shoulders. In the 1920s and 30s, fishermen off Sheringham told of hearing the hound's howling on stormy nights. And as recently as the 1970s, he was reported to have been seen pounding over the beach at Yarmouth.

But his regular hunting ground was along the North Norfolk coast where he was said to make his terrifying dash from Runton to Overstrand. The conversation in the public houses of Cromer, often turned to tales of Shuck, and the town was said to be at the very heart of his home ground.

Yet Shuck is not confined to Norfolk. And once, on a stormy summer afternoon in 1577, he made a fateful trip across the border into Suffolk.

The church at Blythburgh.

On Sunday August 4, 1577 in Bungay he tore through the congregation of St Mary's Church during a service. The fiery dog killed two and left another injured, shrivelled "like a drawn purse."

As the shocked townsfolk reeled from the tragedy, news came that not long before, Shuck had struck just a few miles away at Blythburgh where he had again attacked the church congregation. A man and boy were killed there and others left scorched and hysterical as the church spire crashed through the roof, breaking the font while the tower bells tumbled down.

As the dreadful dog flew from the church, he is said to have left deep scorch marks on the door. The legend continued for centuries even though there were no signs of the marks on the original door. Then, in 1933, the door was cleaned and burn marks - some say they were the devil's own fingerprints - were there for all to see. They remain there today.

The gruesome tales of Shuck are thought to have been the inspiration for another beastly creation, The Hound of the Baskervilles. In 1901, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had just returned from a stint as a field doctor during the Boer War where he had contracted Enteric fever. He decided to recuperate in Norfolk by taking a golfing holiday with a journalist friend, Bertram Fletcher Robinson.

LOOK FAMILIAR? The gothic Cromer Hall.

They stayed in Cromer at the Royal Links Hotel and it was in the private sitting room that Robinson recounted the local tales of a hideous black hound, which roamed the North Norfolk coast.

Local superstition has it that the tracks of a demon hound run through Mill Lane past the old Links Hotel and over the hill into the grounds of Cromer Hall, a large Gothic pile complete with gargoyles, angled roofs, tall chimneys and heavily-mullioned windows - all draped in ivy.

Doyle was also acquainted with Lord Cromer and was a regular visitor to Cromer Hall. It is said that the coachman who took him there went by the name of 'Baskerville'. Small wonder that little time passed before Doyle penned his classic mystery The Hound of the Baskervilles. Unfortunately for Norfolk's literary fame, Doyle relocated the devil dog's hunting ground to Dartmoor!

The Black Dog may be just superstition, but if you ever hear a blood chilling howl on a dark winter's evening, be sure to avert your gaze and lock your doors.

And beware of the dog!

• Alice sent us the following:
  When I was 14 years old I went to visit my friends dads house in the country, I can't quite remember where abouts it was but at was in Suffolk. Anyway, he was driving me home one night along a long country road. It was late but there was still some light. I could see we were approaching a main road ahead and gazed at all the cars passing fast infront of us, there was a perfect view of all the traffic and all the lights. Then I saw a huge black creature running alongside the speedy road in front! It was half the height of the cars passing by and seemed to effortlessly begin to overtake them. It was in the shape of a dog or wolf, only much bigger. I thought my mind was playing tricks on me but then my friends dad said 'wow what was that?, a deer perhaps?' I said ' What, overtaking cars on a 70mph road?' and I realised that what had just happened was quite extraordinary.
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• Geoff Cawthorne contacted us with the following:
  Well over sixty years ago my grandmother told me about a ghostly black dog she had seen on the Ouse estuary. It was known locally as Black Shuck. She said when she turned around it had gone, but she was worried for weeks about what misfortune would befall her. I don't know if anything did.
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• Richard Howland-Bolton contacted us with the following:
  The name Shuck seems to go back to Old English (at least pre-1000AD). The word is used by Hrothgar in the poem Beowulf in reference to the monster Grendel at line 939a "scuccum ond scinnum" - 'Shucks and Shines'. Scucc would have been pronounced pretty much then as it is today. What it means is not (as usual) terribly clear, but I wonder if the close association of shine and shuck has anything to do with Shuck's eyes.
  
  
• SD contacted us with the following:
  We holidayed on the Norfolk coast, one thundery evening my 6yr old son and I drove along the coast to find a shop open to get a pint of milk. I parked up then noticed my son had nodded off in the backseat so ran into the shop and left him there. On returning to the car my son was sat upright in the back, shaking with a face as white as a sheet. I thought he had just been scared of the thunder, but as I opened the car door I was alerted to a rustling in the trees infront of the car and saw what can only be described as an extremely huge scruffy dog heading away. My son was sat starring motionless at where the dog had disappeared. I asked if he was ok and what was the matter, he answered that he had just seen a werewolf! I laughed and said "Don't be silly, it was just a big dog" but he said "No, it had orange fireballs in its eyes and it tried to get in the car". The following morning when packing up the car I was astounded to find big muddy pawprints on the bonnet and the back windows! I found your website quite by accident and had a nosey, I got shivers down my spine when I read about BLACK SHUCK.
  
  
• Craig Jenkins has also seen Black Shuck:
  Between 1978 and 1985 I was a Policeman in the Suffolk Constabulary, Lowestoft Division attached to Halesworth Subdivision. One winter's night I was on patrol in my panda car travelling North on the A12 road just North of Blythburgh when a huge black dog as big as a child's pony charged across the road from the trees on the West side of the road and crossed over onto the marshes on the East side of the road, I braked to a standstill and watched the animal run out of sight into a mist on the marshes. The dog appeared to be like a mongrel x wolfhound type animal and its coat was wiry and either greying or muddy.
  I later became a dog handler at Lowestoft before migrating to Australia and I can honestly say that was like no other dog I have ever seen I would say.That I could clearly see 30 seconds before it was gone in the mist.It was a moonlit night.It was after
  this episode that I noticed the story of Black Chucc in a local newspaper.
  Another night about a year later I was stationed at Aldeburgh and every six weeks one of us had to work night shift patrolling from Saxmundham to Blythburgh incorporating Aldeburgh and Leiston.
  On this night I thought I saw something in the graveyard of Blythburgh Church and as I checked the building looking for roofing lead thieves I shone my torch on the church doors and there were these huge scratch marks and scorching clearly visible. At that very moment I heard the most bloodcurdling howl of some beast comming from the marsh beyond the graveyard. I was terrified and ran back to my car and got the hell out of there as fast as I could. I made it my busines to never go near that place again.
  Recounting this event tpo you has put the hairs up on the back of my neck again as if it had only just happened.

PART TWO - HUNT FOR THE DEVIL DOG

LOCATION

SHUCKLAND

GHOSTLY BLACK DOGS

APPARITIONS OF BLACK DOGS