| Location: |
Bradwell-on-Sea, ESSEX |
|
|
| Encounter: |
"Me and my dad saw Black Shuck twice,
scared the hell out of us. We was lamping right out on the marshes the
first time we saw it. We had seen its eyes shine in the lamp from a rise
in a field that looked over the marshes on the land-side of the sea
wall. We thought it was a fox and went over to investigate. When we got
next to the sea wall this massive black dog came loping out of a bush
right out in front of us and walked calmly over the sea wall, crossing a
footpath. We had the lamp on it all the time, it looked quite wolf like,
but very shaggy, and unconcerned with our presence. Its eyes were
glowing but that was just because of the lamp shining on it. We drove to
the top of the sea wall straight away and it was nowhere to be seen.
The next time was in a corner of a field next to our
house further in land. Again it popped out of a hedge right in front of
us on one side of the corner and walked into the hedge on the other
side. Again it disappeared, but I admit there is a big ditch, so if it
was a real dog then it could have walked along that.
I think it was about 2000 and 2002, both late summer.
both times we was pretty sure it wasn't a normal dog. For a start it was
a lot bigger than most. I would say a little bigger than a wolfhound or
deerhound. Also it wasn't a bit inquisitive, like you would expect from
a domestic dog when you get up close. It just walked along like we
wasn't there. When we told people about on the farm they said it was
Black Shuck straight away and said they often saw it when they were
combining at night during the harvest. Might have been a dog and they
were winding us up, but I don't think so. They also call it Old Shuck in
the village." |
|
|
| Source: |
Submitted to this site by Pete, from
Bradwell-on-Sea. |
|
|
| Comments: |
As the witness himself says, there's a fair
chance that on both occasions this may well have been an ordinary dog.
There certainly don't seem to have been any supernatural aspects to it.
I'm intrigued by the hint of existing Shuck traditions and other
sightings in Bradwell, but I haven't yet been able to confirm them from
any other sources.
|
|
|
|
Location:
|
Buckhurst Hill, ESSEX
|
|
|
| Encounter: |
"Black Shuck the demon dog is back
again; or he was as recently as Summer 1989 around Buckhurst Hill,
Essex, where he alarmed a trio of 17-year-old boys walking to a party
through a local graveyard, and soon thereafter a motorist, on the bonnet
of whose car he landed. These incidents are fondly recalled among Epping
students to whom I teach English literature...the Buckhurst Hill version
had but one [eye], planted Cyclops-style in the centre of its
forehead." |
|
|
| Source: |
Michael Goss: 'Black Shuck' in the 'Fortean
Times' No. 63 (June/July 1992), p. 57. |
|
|
| Comments: |
This is dubious partly because of a lack of
information, and partly because the author himself guessed that the
story was fabricated. |
| Location: |
Cambridge, CAMBRIDGESHIRE |
|
|
| Encounter: |
"[In 1978] I was driving along the main Cherry Hinton Road out of Cambridge in broad daylight, (10am in the morning) when the bus in front of me stopped at some traffic lights and a young man leapt off and started attacking my car. Fortunately, for once all the car doors were locked and he had to make do with simply rocking it and pulling at the door handles...eventually the lights changed and the bus moved off allowing me to do the same.
On reaching my home I telephoned the police and they quickly
rounded the lad up. His explanation for the incident was that on getting off the bus he had seen a big black dog sitting in the back of my car and had felt the need to kill it...or at least get me out. He was of course, under the influence of drugs but I wonder what made him think he saw 'the dog.'
I didn't own one at the time, nor did I have any intentions
of owning one, however, come that Christmas my husband bought me a black labrador as protection...The lad received one month's sentence I believe - just time to dry him out. I changed my car as an added
precaution, in case he struck again, but I have never seen nor heard of him since...having been born and bred in West Suffolk I am of course, familiar with the stories of Black Shuck." |
|
|
| Source: |
Letter from Mrs. Mary S. Barsham to me, 31/10/1983. |
|
|
| Comments: |
I have to class this report as dubious as the only actual witness was on drugs at the time. |
|
|
| Location: |
Dunwich, SUFFOLK |
|
|
| Encounter: |
Mrs. Ethel H. Rudkin of Winchester was holidaying with her mother at Dunwich in 1926, and while finding exposed pieces of pottery in a cliff face one hot day, had the feeling of being watched. She looked up to see a very large black dog "rather like a retriever", with mouth open and looking fierce. As Mrs. Rudkin had a six month old pup with her, she hurried away, and later spoke of her encounter to a local fisherman named Chris
Watling.
While she asserted that she had seen Black Shuck, he was certain it was just a local sheepdog. He described three such dogs to her, but when she said none of them fitted the description, and that what she'd seen was "a very large black retriever", he turned on his heel and made off. She believes that this was because he knew very well that she'd seen "the black dog of Dunwich..." (1)
"Mrs. Rudkin herself saw the Black Dog in 1926 at the ruined Dunwich Abbey [TM47767038]; she did not at that time know about the local tradition." (2) |
|
|
| Source: |
(1) A. J. Forrest: 'Encounters with Phantom Dogs', in the 'East Anglian Daily Times', 15/3/1965.
(2) Theo Brown: 'The Black Dog', in 'Folklore', Vol. 69 (1958), p. 179. |
|
|
| Comments: |
Apart from the witness's perception of the event,
and an existing tradition of a black dog at Dunwich, it's hard to see anything remotely 'supernatural' about this encounter. |
| Location: |
Earsham area, NORFOLK |
|
|
| Encounter: |
"...I was friendly with an old lady who has several dogs and we used to walk often together...She was, she said, riding her horse across some fields, I cannot remember quite where, but suddenly her horse reared up and she saw a dog, but she saw a black one. She said it walked towards them. The horse, who was used to dogs as she had quite a few, was terrified and would not go on so she had to go to an aunt's cottage nearby and rest until the horse was ready to go on again. She also said the horse died within a year of this happening." |
|
|
| Source: |
Letters from Mrs. C. M. Sturman (friend of witness) to me, 21/8/1983, 19/12/1983. |
|
|
| Comments: |
The writer had told the witness of her own 'Ghostly Dog' incidents (see under
Beccles in the main records), and the witness then said "she had also seen it." Otherwise, there seems little 'supernatural' about this dog, and I
have to class it as 'dubious'. |
| Location: |
Great Yarmouth, NORFOLK |
|
|
| Encounter: |
A ghost or ghosts were allegedly seen by various people near the Southtown railway station in January 1860. Some said it had a 'Will o'the Wisp' appearance and said it was the same ghost that had haunted Cemetery Road in January 1859. Others said it was a large black dog with a heavy chain attached to its neck. Described as a white dog the size of a polar bear, it was also seen in the marshes to the west of the station, in the engine house of the East Suffolk Railway. It was seen to leap around and over various trucks, and scared cattle in the marshes.
Even more dubiously, a later witness said that he had been beaten by the ghost, "who was dressed in a tight-fitting cow skin, with horns on, and which was accompanied by a friend in white raiment." |
|
|
| Source: |
The 'Norwich Mercury', 25/1/1860. |
|
|
| Comments: |
I tend to think either that this report was
made up by a journalist having a laugh, or that there were a number of
people around in January 1860 still suffering from the New Year
celebrations! |
| Location: |
Unknown location, NORFOLK |
|
|
| Encounter: |
According to a folk-tale, which probably originates in Norfolk, a boy was sent on an errand at dusk, but when he reached his destination, it was locked up. Just as he was leaving a large black dog "rose up silently from the ground", and put its paws on his shoulders. The boy was scared, but recovered quickly and went home. He told his parents about it, but made little of it and went to bed. During the night he died from 'delayed shock'. The people at the house he had been sent to had no dog, and local superstition reckoned the dog to be a 'Barguest.' |
|
|
| Source: |
Katherine Briggs: 'Dictionary of British Folk-Tales' Part B, Vol. 1 (1971), p. 10, relating from Christina Hole: 'English Folk-Lore' (1940), p. 150. |
|
|
| Comments: |
Briggs adds that "though described as a Barguest, this dog appears to have been very like a natural dog." Indeed, I see nothing
supernatural about it at all. Also, 'Barguest' is not a term used in East
Anglia to describe a supernatural creature. |
