The Lore of Black Shuck

Ghosts of the broads

There are many tales told of Black Shuck. Old tales, new tales, half-sightings and terrifying stories of meeting a shaggy black dog with one, fiery eye in the middle of the night.

It is said his howl will curdle your blood but that his footfall makes no sound. Some talk of eyes like saucers and a hot breath like fire on your face. To some, he’s neither black, nor a dog, cleverly disguising himself as a cat to stalk his prey.

Slinking along lonely coastal paths, hunting in the fields and woods, will you meet him on a muddy lane? Perhaps he’ll pass you in the half-shadows of an old oak, as the moon rises on a summer’s night, or he’ll creep up on you, cloaked in the misty chill of a mid-winter afternoon.

Supernatural, paranormal or just a shaggy dog story for dark nights, the earliest tales of Black Shuck date back to the 16th Century. Associated with a devastating summer storm that struck the parish churches of Bungay and Blythburgh, the dog has been rearing its terrifying head in the folklore of the area ever since.

The dog wanders. Across Norfolk and Suffolk and as far afield as Cambridgeshire and Essex. Said to guard buried treasure at the ruined St Benet’s abbey, he is also seen at Coltishall Bridge at the upper reaches of the Bure. One time being headless, another “as big as a calf and as noiseless as death”. As late as the 1960s, two RAF officers were stunned to see him on the cobbles of Coltishall High Street, only for the large black dog to completely vanish into thin air.

Roaming the coast at Caister-on-sea on stormy nights, some say he’s looking for a long-passed master, while others believe he is a terrifying stranger that drives unsuspecting boys out to sea at Lowestoft, snapping at their legs, sinking his teeth into their necks.

Is he the devil’s dog or the devil himself? Perhaps he’s just had plenty of time to make himself into the image of anyone’s nightmares.