Case file · Folklore / legend
Black Shuck
A ghostly black dog of East Anglia, sometimes an omen of death, said to have burst into the churches of Bungay and Blythburgh in 1577.
1577 CE · 52.46, 1.44 · status: legend
The account
Abraham Fleming's pamphlet A Straunge and Terrible Wunder described the Bungay event. Writers in 1850, 1877 and 1901 recorded local descriptions of a huge shaggy dog with fiery eyes.
The sceptical view
The Blythburgh appearance is said to have come with a clap of thunder, which suggests a storm and lightning behind the story.
Connections in the atlas
- The Moddey Dhoo of Peel Castle
- Black dog (Black Shuck)
- Squire Cabell and the hounds of Buckfastleigh
- Spring-heeled Jack
- Am Fear Liath Mòr, the Grey Man of Ben Macdui
- The Wild Hunt