Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Black Shuck




Walking alone down a dark road, you notice a strange black dog staring at you. It stands very still, with huge eyes glinting red in the moonlight, seeming to choose you for some unknown purpose. Should you run, or should you stand quietly and hope it moves on. Suddenly, the dog turns and races away though the woods leaving you relieved, but fightened. There was something about that dog that didn't seem real. Perhaps what you saw was the ominous Black Shuck of British legend.

Black Shuck is a spectral dog said to haunt the Norfolk, Essex and Suffolk coast of England. Its eyes, sometimes glowing red, and sometimes green, are its most striking feature. They seen to bore a hole straight through the witnesses heart. The beast's size can vary as well. I suspect the greater the victims fear, the larger Black Shuck appears. Does it feed and grow on terror? 

Black Shuck has been the source of fear for a very long time. His name may mean demon, from the Anglo-Saxon word scucca, or possibly shaggy from the equally old word shucky. Alternately, he could be a historical memory of Odin's dog of war, Shukir. 

He usually brings tidings of ill, but not always. At times he seems content to merely terrify his quarry by dramatically floating in mist, or even appearing headless before his quaking watcher. 


Do you see the scorched scratch marks in this church door? Legend has it those scratches were caused by Black Shuck during a fierce thunder storm at a village named Blythburgh in Suffolk. In the year 1577, Shuck burst through the church entry, ran up the nave, and left a man and boy dead in his wake. As you can see, the scratch marks are still there for all the world to consider. They are called, by the way, the Devil's fingerprints.

On the same day, a second encounter with Black Shuck occurred in the nearby town of Bungay. Once again, Shuck burst through the church door, ran up and down the nave and killed two people by wringing their necks. 


    

You shouldn't be surprised if Black Shuck sounds familiar. A very similar spectral dog is featured in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's, The Hound of the Baskervilles. Sherlock Holmes finds an entirely logical solution to the hound's existence. Logic is always reassuring. So if you meet as large black dog with glowing eyes, remember there is a logical answer to everything. Or is there?


2 comments:

  1. I love this new blog. You hit my inner fantasy longing. Yes, that is right I am a fantasy fan. I want to believe.

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  2. i belive too- but i think ya left out some facts. 1st off- i STRONGLY dought you wanna see it.
    where i'm from we call it the hell hound. it wanders around in ALL GRAVE YARDS some times seen trailing behind people (mabe so WE don't disturb the dead?) some say it is the gaudian of the graves and some say for it to be the devil's hound for the taste of innocent blood.
    also- it MAY not even touch you- but if you see it THREE TIME YOU WILL SOON DIE BY ONLY GOD KNOWS WHAT!
    MY veiw of the story:
    in england( or whereever it was) there where fires that erupted through villages- and people got there butts SCORCHED! people ran and prayed to god for mercy from the devil; when the black shuck entered the church, three people were instantly damned- they were insanely burned. two of the three were BURNED TO DEATH right there in the church. the other one suffered imense pain till his death. rinse and repeat: for three days- they prayed anf they finally got salvation.

    (YEARS later) in the United States... (you may reconize this from "lost tapes" sorry 4 errors :)
    a cliq was about to include a new member. The goths thought it would be a good idea for it to be held in a cemetary. Not Good. they blind folded the new member and started to chant. little did they know it wasw for calling forth the demons. there in the shadow of an old oak tree came out the hell hound. smoke around it from the smoldering rubble- it barked and howled n" growled at the kids as they ran scremeing for there lives. the new member ripped off the blindfold and they all got up aganced the tombstones yelling, " close your eyes! close your eyes! don't look!" over and over again untill all the comotion died down. the barking stopped and they ran for the car. struggling to turn it on they rushed out of the cemetary and they crashed. all of them died but one- the "new member" walking off the black shuck trots beside..... go figure....

    now what do you belive in more? aleins or the black shuck?

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