There stood a foul thing, a great, black beast,
shaped like a hound, yet larger than any hound that ever mortal eye has rested
upon. And even as they looked the thing tore the throat out of Hugo
Baskerville, on which, as it turned its blazing eyes and dripping jaws upon
them, the three [men] shrieked with fear and rode for dear life, still
screaming, across the moor.
Sir Arthur
Conan Doyle – The Hound of the Baskervilles
Monstrous black dog statue in New Zealand (public domain)
In many lands
around the world, the week spanning Christmas Day and New Year's Day is often
deemed to be an uncanny even preternatural period of time, during which all
manner of strange events may occur or surreal entities be seen. So when better
than now to present as my final ShukerNature article for 2018, an examination
of the truly mystifying phenomenon of phantom Black Dogs.
The monstrous
canine star of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's most famous Sherlock Holmes novel would
be terrifying enough if it were wholly fictitious. Incredibly, however, Conan Doyle's
inspiration came from reality – generations of sightings and lore concerning a
black-furred phantom dog known locally as the Black Dog of Hergest on the
English-Welsh border. Moreover, many people do not realise that there really is
a Baskerville Hall, near the Welsh border village of Clyro, to be precise
– at which Conan Doyle stayed, and where he heard tales of the ominous Black
Dog.
It was only to
preserve the privacy of the Baskerville family that when Conan Doyle decided to
use their name and the Black Dog legend as the basis for a forthcoming Sherlock
Holmes novel, he relocated it from Wales to Dartmoor. Yet here too there
are a number of legends of spectral, ebony-hued hounds with fiery eyes (of
which Conan Doyle was also aware), just as there are in many other British
localities, as well as in mainland Europe, and even in
regions as far-flung as North America and Australia. Collectively,
these canine apparitions are variously referred to as Black Dogs or Hell Hounds,
and are among the most perplexing, and, quite often, sinister, zooform
(animal-assuming, paranormal) entities on record.
The
Hound of the Baskervilles, by Sidney Paget (public domain)
Many sightings
are associated with certain country lanes or paths, and there is more than one inn
and public house in England named 'The
Black Dog' on account of Black Dog legends linked to nearby walkways.
Churchyards are another frequently-reported location for Black Dog sightings
(these Black Dogs are termed Church Grims or Kirkgrims), as are localities
close to stretches of water, and even certain urban roads and streets are
reputedly haunted by these eerie entities.
So commonly
spied are certain regional Black Dog manifestations that they have their own
names, such as Black Shuck in Norfolk, Padfoot in Staffordshire, Barguest in
Yorkshire, Hooter in Warwickshire, Hairy Jack in Lincolnshire, Gwyllgi (Welsh
for 'dog of darkness') on the Welsh coast, Mauthe Doog in the Isle of Man,
Skriker ('howler') or Trask in Lancashire, Muckle Black Tyke in parts of
Scotland, and Tchico in Jersey.
'Church Grim', painted by Inès Lee and commissioned by Sir John
Das (© Wikipedia/ Inès Lee – CC BY-SA 4.0 licence)
WHAT
MAKES A BLACK DOG A 'BLACK DOG'?
Of course, there
are all manner of comfortingly corporeal, perfectly prosaic canine beasties
running loose in our towns and countryside, having absconded from or been let
off the lead by their owners. So how can we tell these 'normal' black dogs from
the 'real' Black Dogs? There are, in fact, several very important signs to look
out for.
NOW YOU SEE IT,
NOW YOU DON'T!
First and
foremost: Black Dogs often exhibit the alarming ability to vanish into thin
air, in full view of their astonished eyewitnesses. One excellent example of
this occurred on 19 April 1972 at Gorleston,
in Norfolk. It was about 4.45 am, when coastguard Graham Grant caught sight
of a very big, jet-black hound-like creature running along the beach. Grant
stood watching it for a few moments until suddenly, as he continued to look at
it, the animal disappeared! One second it was there, the next – gone!
Across 'the pond',
16-year-old Mark Chester from Atlanta, Georgia, and a friend, Jeff, were
driving one evening in 1979 along the aptly-named North Druid Hills Road when,
about 75 yards ahead on his
side, Mark saw what looked like a black labrador retriever trot out into the
road. As it was not yet dark and the road was well lit by streetlights, this
animal was perfectly visible, despite its dark coat. To the teenager's
amazement, however, just as the 'dog' was approximately three-quarters of the
way across the road, it simply vanished. Jeff saw it vanish too. Recalling the
incident 15 years later, Mark was still certain of what he had seen: "I
know what I saw. There is no doubt in my mind that something was in the road
that night and then it wasn't".
In 1981, Irene
Cole and her husband were driving along the Stanner Road in
Herefordshire, and were just a mile or so from Kington, when they saw an
immense Black Dog sitting motionless in the road, at the bottom of a hill. Her
husband swerved to miss it, there was no impact, and the dog simply vanished,
without a trace.
The
main road that the Wednesbury-Darlaston Brown Dog has often been seen crossing,
only for it to vanish before reaching the other side (© Dr Karl Shuker)
Intriguingly,
there is a main road situated little more than a mile from where I live in the
West Midlands, linking the urban towns of Wednesbury and Darlaston, that has a
longstanding history of evanescent Black Dog occurrences – though the term 'Black
Dog' is applied somewhat loosely here...bearing in mind that this particular
Black Dog is actually brown! Be that as it may, in best Black Dog tradition this
Brown Dog is allegedly seen crossing the road, only to vanish from sight before
reaching the other side. So far, I have never seen it myself, but as it is
supposed to be an ill omen, this is probably no bad thing! (Having said that,
my surname is actually linked to Black Dogs – click here
for my ShukerNature coverage of this intriguing fact.)
OMENS OF DOOM –
TOUCH NOT THE DOG!
Certainly, a
notable characteristic of Black Dogs according to legend, lore, and also
modern-day testimony is that they are said to be harbingers of doom, their
appearance often foretelling death or impending bad luck – and which is almost
always guaranteed if anyone is unwise enough to touch such a creature,
especially if done in a violent, threatening manner.
One evening in 1927,
a friend of the famous Manx author Walter Gill was walking along
a road close to Ramsey when he came upon a typical phantasmal Black Dog – jet-furred
and fiery-eyed – standing directly in his path so that he was unable to pass,
and staring resolutely into his face. Mindful of the danger of making physical
contact with a Black Dog, Gill's friend made no attempt to push by it, but
stood his ground and waited, until eventually the Black Dog moved to one side,
allowing him to pass. Nevertheless, its very presence had seemingly been dire
enough, for not long afterwards the father of Gill's friend died, and he was
convinced that the Black Dog's appearance had been a warning of this.
Fiery
glowing eyes are a recurring characteristic of Black Dog reports (public domain)
Back in 1893,
two men driving a cart along a Norfolk lane had
similarly encountered a blaze-eyed Black Dog blocking their path. Unlike Gill's
friend, however, they had shown far less patience and wisdom, because the driver
aggressively ran their cart directly at the creature! As soon as the cart hit
it, however, the Black Dog vanished in a brilliant ball of fire, filling the
air with a vile sulphurous stench, and just a few days later the driver died.
Judging from
that, the Dartmoor farmer who struck with a poker a red-eyed
Black Dog that had appeared outside his and his wife's bedroom door one early
winter morning in 1972 was lucky indeed to escape with his life. Just as in the
Norfolk incident, the Black Dog instantly
vanished in a blinding, exploding flash of light, but the farmer and his wife
experienced no ill effects. The same, however, could not be said for their
house, whose entire electrical circuitry was destroyed, along with every
window, and even a number of tiles on the roof were dislodged, such was the
power of the explosion.
Sometimes, those
few who have been brave, or foolish, enough to touch a Black Dog and have survived
the experience have reported a very eerie characteristic of their close
encounters. Stretching out to stroke or pat the Black Dog, they have found to
their amazement that their hand has passed straight through it, as if the
creature were no more than an illusion, or ghost, and also that the Black Dog
has not even reacted to their action – just as if it were not even aware of
their presence.
Statuette
of a Black Dog (© Dr Karl Shuker)
EYES OF FIRE
As already
noticeable from the reports documented so far, a readily visible feature
immediately distinguishing Black Dogs from black dogs is the blazing, scarlet
appearance of the former entities' eyes. "Like live coals inside the
monstrous head" is how one terrified Black Dog eyewitness, a student from
Trinity College, Dublin, described them after seeing a huge Black Dog walking
towards him one spring day in 1928, as he was fishing in a river close to his
Londonderry home during the Easter holiday. So petrified was the student by
this rapidly-approaching apparition that he abandoned his fishing and clambered
for safety into the branches of a tree close by, from where, still shaking with
fright, he gazed down as the Black Dog walked underneath and looked up at him,
baring its teeth, before passing on by.
Eye-shine in
normal, flesh-and-blood dogs is a greenish-yellow glow. Having said that,
during some investigations of mine into eye-shine in animals I discovered that
certain eye conditions, such as cataracts and keratitis, can create an abnormal
reddish eye glow or bloom in dogs (click here
for more information). So it is possible that at least a few cases of red-eyed
Black Dogs were actually nothing more than normal, flesh-and-blood black dogs
with eye ailments. However, this cannot explain all Black Dog reports with
glowing red eyes – there are far too many on record.
Rough, shaggy
fur is another frequently-described facet of Black Dog morphology, as well as
caliginous, and sometimes fiery, sulphurous breath - more distinct than the
normal panting breath of a dog rendered visible on a cold morning.
A rough-furred, labrador-lookalike Black Dog pub sign (© Dr Karl
Shuker)
THE SILENCE OF
THE DOGS
In the vast
majority of reported cases, Black Dogs are said to be entirely silent, padding
alongside or near to their eyewitness in a spookily soundless manner.
Curiously, however, one or two of these ghostly creatures are associated with
the sound of rattling chains, and there are also a handful of reports
describing splashing noises, as if the creature were wading through or emerging
from water.
A famous Black
Dog associated with chains is the Newgate Monster, reported and depicted in a
broadside from as long ago as 1638. This sinister Black Dog apparently was often
seen gliding up and down the streets adjacent to the ivy-covered wall at the
end of Amen Court, and sometimes crawling along the top of the wall itself,
dragging a heavy chain, just before an execution was due to take place at the
original Newgate Prison nearby (the new Newgate Prison was built there in 1783).
Moreover, in
traditional lore, some of the diabolical Hell Hounds are given to voicing
ferocious, spine-chilling howls and bays, terrifying their onlookers.
Two
engraving depicting the Newgate Black Dog and its chain (public domain)
LARGER THAN LIFE
An extremely
noticeable physical characteristic of Black Dogs is their very large size. For
whereas some have been likened to labradors, others have been compared in size
with calves and even small horses! Take, for instance, the red-eyed Irish Black
Dog seen lying in the road early one evening in the 1930s by a person walking
her dog close to County Mayo's Pontoon Bridge Hotel – so huge did it appear
that she had initially assumed it to be a donkey! Similarly, the fiery-eyed,
shaggy-furred Black Dog that haunts a lane in Uplyme, Devon – so regularly, in
fact, that this route is actually named Dog Lane (there is also a Black Dog hotel
there) – was said by a local woman who saw it in 1856 to be as big as a calf.
Intriguingly, in
October 1972 Tavistock police constable John Duckworth spied an enormous canine
mystery beast on Dartmoor – resembling a black hound the size of a
small pony, it had been seen by him once before, three years earlier. As
recently as 1995, James Sanderson and three friends were driving home from Smarden, Kent, when they
stopped in some fog, and were astonished to see a Black Dog walk by that was as
big as their car. In 1986, after hearing a scratching sound in his yard, Robert
Harman of South Tuckswood, Suffolk, decided to investigate, and was very
startled to see a huge dog with red eyes leap over his wall.
In 2001, Danish
theologian Lars Munk encountered the famous Black Dog of Viborg, Denmark, one evening
just after midnight at the ley-linked
location within Viborg where this canine entity has been sighted many times down
through the centuries. Sporting pointed ears and a ridge of harsh hairs along
its back, it walked under a street light and looked directly at Munk, shimmering
with a weird flickering fluorescent-green light before abruptly disappearing
into the darkness. Clearly, Black Dogs are still very much around!
A Black
Dog ridden by a witch, from La Vie Execrable de Guillemette Babin, Sorciere,
1926 (public domain)
WHAT
ARE BLACK DOGS?
There can be
little doubt, judging from the sizeable archive of reports on file, that Black
Dogs do exist – but what they actually are is much less easy to determine.
Their ability to vanish in full view of their observer and their apparent
insubstantial nature confirm that unlike their feline counterparts, Britain's motley
assortment of mystery cats, Black Dogs are more than merely elusive creatures
of cryptozoology. Instead, they are non-physical, preternatural entities, of
superficially canine appearance but exhibiting some unequivocally non-canine
attributes, both morphological and behavioural.
Based upon their
definite attachment to certain specific physical localities, especially certain
lanes, streams or rivers, churchyards, and even some ancient sites (many
researchers have noted links between Black Dog appearances and the presence of
ley lines, which are in turn associated with these types of locality), a
popular identity proffered by investigators is that Black Dogs are a form of
preserved image from the past – somehow preserved within a locality's
geological composition, and which can be activated if precise meteorological
conditions are met. Similar notions have also been proposed to explain other
spectral phenomena, such as ghosts, and disembodied voices.
It would be as
if a film projector loaded with a loop of film had suddenly been switched on,
and its film had been allowed to run its course. This theory would certainly
help to explain various anomalous Black Dog reports in which the Black Dog has
not interacted with its observer in any way, instead behaving in a manner
seemingly oblivious to the observer's presence. In contrast, however, most
Black Dog cases involve direct interaction between observer and Black Dog,
which could not occur if the latter entity were, in essence, nothing more than
a preserved, meteorologically-triggered, moving image from the past.
Are
Black Dogs hallucinations? (© Jane Cooper)
A related
hypothesis is that certain meteorological conditions, especially those
associated with electrical phenomena, may induce hallucinations in people susceptible
to such stimuli. There is also the analogous possibility that some Black Dog
experiences are temporal lobe apparitions – damage or malfunctions in this
particular paired region of the brain are known to generate hallucinations
during epileptic seizures, including ones that have the appearance (to the subject
experiencing them) of external paranormal phenomena, including unearthly
entities. Yet another psychologically-grounded theory is that certain people
are actively generating these canine apparitions using the power, consciously
or otherwise, of their own mind, yielding tulpoid Black Dogs that can fully
interact with their creators and even other people.
In some cases, they
may even be hallucinations brought about by fatigue. For example, crypto-colleague
George Warren Shank mentioned to me in September 2012 that in the USA truckers
and other long-distance drivers are so familiar with spying non-existent black
dogs induced by sleep deprivation and tiredness that they refer to them as dodgers,
and on more than one occasion have nearly swerved off the road in order to
avoid hitting such creatures, only to discover that there was nothing there.
Perhaps the most
popular idea is that Black Dogs are archetypal guardians of their respective
localities, and, by extension in some cases, of people passing through these
localities. There are several cases on file, for instance, of women walking
alone at night along some lonely, potentially dangerous road, only to find
themselves abruptly accompanied by a large Black Dog, walking silently beside
them, and staying in their company until they are close or within sight of
their destination, whereupon the dog vanishes as mysteriously and suddenly as
it had appeared.
The
Black Dog – an aloof anomaly in canine guise (public domain)
CANINE
ENCOUNTERS OF THE BIZARRE KIND!
Whereas most
Black Dogs are of the traditional, quasi-labrador kind described above,
notwithstanding their fiery eyes and often-intangible nature, some far more
exotic, even downright bizarre variations on this canine theme have also been
reported.
Black Shuck of
Norfolk usually assumes the 'normal' Black Dog form, but on occasion has been
reported as a terrifying hound totally lacking a head! Moreover, sometimes his
head is missing but his blazing eyes are still present, floating in a decidedly
unnerving, disembodied manner above his body at the level at which they would
be if his head were present!
And speaking of
headless hounds: the spectral Wish Hounds of Dartmoor (also termed Yeth Hounds
or Yell Hounds) are also said to lack heads, whereas the unique Black Dog that
traditionally haunts the environs of Suffolk's Clopton Hall is human-headed – specifically,
it sports the head of a cowled monk.
Hell
Hounds pursuing a human victim during the Wild Hunt (public domain)
Most terrifying
of all are the Devil's Dandy Dogs. Hailing from Cornwall, these huge
jet-black diabolical Hell Hounds have saucer-sized blazing eyes, tongues of
fire dart from their mouth, and on their head is a pair of horns! They are said
to accompany the devil when he hunts on horseback across the Cornish moors, in
search of human souls.
Incidentally,
whenever I read about such creatures having saucer-sized eyes, I am irresistibly
reminded of the trio of giant black huge-eyed dogs encountered by the soldier
in Hans Christian Andersen's famous fairy tale 'The Tinder Box'. Might this
story have been inspired by real-life reports of phantom Black Dogs in his
native Denmark?
One
of the three huge-eyed black dogs encountered by the soldier when opening the
magic tinder box in Hans Christian Andersen's beloved fairy tale – illustrated by
H.J. Ford for Andrew Lang's Yellow Fairy Book, 1894 (public domain)
BEWARE
THE BEAST OF BUNGAY!
One of the most
terrifying Black Dog appearances ever recorded allegedly took place on the
morning of 4 August 1577 in the small Suffolk town of Bungay. During a
fierce electrical storm, a ferocious, malevolent Black Dog materialised inside
St Mary's Church, and ran amok through it, attacking the terrified parishioners
and leaving havoc and horror in its wake. According to records dating from that
time, this "strange and terrible wunder [sic]" tore the throats out
of its victims, and scorched one hapless man as if he were a piece of leather
burnt in a hot fire. Nor was that all.
Other records
claim that on that same day, during the electrical storm, what was presumably
the same Black Dog appeared 10 miles away inside
another Suffolk church, this time the splendorous Holy Trinity Church at
Blythburgh, where similar devastation ensued, with at least three people being
slain by the beast, and even the church steeple collapsing, causing the deaths
of several more parishioners inside. Moreover, when this Hell Hound finally exited
the church, it left the marks of its great claws gouged into the church's door,
which can still be seen today (a modern-day photo of them is contained in
Graham McEwan's book Mystery Animals of Britain and Ireland, 1986).
Pamphlet
from 1577 recording the incredible case of the Bungay Black Dog (public domain)
In reality, all
of this may have been nothing more dramatic than a massive lightning strike, or
even a fireball, transformed by imaginative chroniclers into a supernatural
canine visitation. Then again, as revealed here, Black Dog appearances are far
from uncommon or unusual events. And something definitely left behind those
claw-like marks on the church door at Blythburgh.
Worth noting is
that possibly the earliest Black Dog appearance on record (chronicled in 856 AD
by Bertin in the Annales Francorum Regum) featured a red-eyed Black Dog
materialising inside a village church during a service, this time in France,
where it ran around the altar for a time, seemingly looking for someone, before
abruptly vanishing into thin air.
Another early
manifestation of a Black Dog allegedly took place one evening in 1552, while Cardinal
Crescentius, the papal ambassador to the Council of Trent and infamous for his
merciless persecution of supposed wrong-doers, was sitting in his chamber
writing a missive to Pope Julius III. Suddenly, a huge flaming-eyed Black Dog
with long ears dangling down to the ground materialised before him and moved
towards him under the great table at which he was sitting. Both amazed and
alarmed, the Cardinal cried out to his servants to enter his chamber and rid
him of this foul creature, but to his even greater amazement when they did enter
they were unable to see the Black Dog. This shocked him so much that he fell
ill, but to his dying day he swore that he could definitely see it, and even
claimed that it was climbing onto his bed.
Engraving
depicting the glowing-eyed Black Dog that reputedly appeared inside the chamber
of Cardinal Crescentius (public domain)
In today's
ultra-technological world, governed by logic and science at every turn, Black
Dogs and other incorporeal canine entities seem sorely out of place, just
anachronistic superstitions and shadowy dreams from earlier, magical ages that
have no business in the mundane modern-day era. And yet still they persist, legends
come to life, doggedly(!) continuing to be reported even today – subtle proof, perhaps,
if proof be needed, that the present and the past may well remain intertwined
by far more than mere memory.
And finally: from the world of fiction but definitely deserving of inclusion in any coverage
of hell hounds and other paranormal pooches, I give you Zoltan - Hound
of Dracula!
At length, the creature lifted its head, letting the
limp, rag-doll torso of the soldier slump disjointedly back to the ground. Its
ears rose up, satanic and pointed. Its eyes blazed with an unnatural, greenish
light. Its enormous jaws, flanked on either side by abnormally huge canine
fangs, were drenched in blood that dripped in great gobs to the dusty floor, as
a great swathe of a tongue lashed obscenely from side to side with relish.
A hound from hell itself had returned...and was now
satiated, renewed with warm, youthful blood.
Ken Johnson – Zoltan – Hound of Dracula
Front
cover of Zoltan – Hound of Dracula, by Ken Johnson, originally published in 1977 as Hounds of Dracula, and upon which the 1978 American horror movie Dracula's Dog (vt Zoltan - Hound of Dracula in the UK) was based (© Ken
Johnson/Everest Books – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use
basis for educational/review purposes only)
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