The Legend of 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

Black Shuck is said to be one of the oldest phantoms of Great Britain, with the name deriving from the Anglo-Saxon word 'scucca' meaning demon or devil. Other historians say that the hound has its origins in Norse mythology based on the huge dog of war of Odin and Thor 'Shukir' who came over to Britain thousands of years ago along with the Vikings long-ships.

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.

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!

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