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Black Dogs

The Black Dog
Overview:
The Black Dog walks in Lincolnshire still ; and there are a number of living people who have seen him, heard him, and even felt him. The people who can supply these details are of the hard-working, normal, strong-minded type, who can tell you quite truly and simply what they have seen, because there is no doubt about it in their minds. They know that what they have seen is not a real dog-they will tell you as much ; but should you cast the slightest doubt
on the story, you will find your source of information suddenly dried up. Perhaps it is because I have seen the Black Dog, and can therefore believe that the narrator has also seen him, that I have been able to get such good first-hand stories, also I was born at the right time, i.e. in the neighbourhood of midnight, so should be able " to see things."
Source: Rudkin, Ethel H. “The Black Dog.” Folklore, vol. 49, no. 2, 1938, pp. 111–31​
 

Attachments

  • Rudkin, Ethel H. “The Black Dog.” Folklore, vol. 49, no. 2, 1938, pp. 111–31.pdf
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The Black Dog
Overview:
It is now some years since Dr Margaret Murray suggested I should attempt a survey of this ubiquitous ghost. T h e picture is by no means complete, but it is beginning to stabilize, and certain patterns are beginning to emerge that suggest some tentative theories. The position is very fluid indeed, and very complicated. So, before proceeding any further, it seemed to be a good idea t o publish a progress report. T h i s will have to be very terse, because there is so much detail one would like to discuss that it needs a book-length essay, and I must leave out most references, also the names of many friends and correspondents, for this reason.​

Source: Brown, Theo (1958). The Black Dog. Folklore, 69(3), 175–192.
 

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  • Brown, T. (1958). The Black Dog. Folklore, 69(3), 175–192..pdf
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The Black Dog
Overview:
The phantasmagoria of rural England are to a great extent due to the race·memory of the pagan gods. This is trueof such figures as the Headless Horseman, the Black Dog, the White Lady, the now defunct fairies, and the ghost-coach. These are the fauns and centaurs of the English scene ; they are mythological, the detritus of a former religion.​

Source: Witcutt, W. P. (1942). The Black Dog. Folklore, 53(3), 167–168.
 

Attachments

  • Witcutt, W. P. (1942). The Black Dog. Folklore, 53(3), 167–168..pdf
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The Black Dog that Worries You at Home
Overview:
In his famous 1977 essay, “Why Look at Animals?” John Berger acknowledged the significance of animal symbolism, contending that since prehistory animals have been used as perhaps the earliest signs “for charting the [human] experience of the world.” Berger suggested that humans’ lived experiences with animals led to and influenced the development of lexicons of animal symbols within human cultures. If such symbols were, and continue, to represent human experience at any breadth, naturally, not all animal symbols hold positive meanings.

Source: Quaile, Sheilagh (2013) "“The black dog that worries you at home”: The Black Dog Motif in Modern English Folklore and Literary Culture," The Great Lakes Journal of Undergraduate History: Vol. 1 : Iss. 1 , Article 3.​
 

Attachments

  • Quaile, Sheilagh (2013) “The black dog that worries you at home”The Great Lakes Journal of Und...pdf
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The Black Dog, Origins and Symbolic Characteristics of the Spectral Canine
Overview:
The Black Dog is a folklore staple, easily recognizable by its mangy back hair, ominous presence, and ember-filled eyes. It is also a symbolic narrative tool in pop culture, as seen in Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Hound of the Baskervilles. However, it did not emerge from a void; Black Dog lore stems from Ulysses’ Argos, continues through the Aesopian dogs, and borrows thematic nuances from werewolves, but its foundations stand firmly on the backs of mythology’s noble hounds: Cerberus and Fenrir, who provide literary and psychological symbolism via their representation of the subconscious triumvirate (superego, ego, and id), temporal triumvirate (past, present, and future), and the Jungian shadow. Furthermore, Cerberus’ role—whose image, I argue, is most influential—as a guardian, not of the boundary between life and death, but between reality and fantasy, is the primordial father of the allegory of self-perpetuating imagination, of which the Black Dog is a vital fragment.

Source: Zmarzlinski, Adam . The Black Dog, Origins and Symbolic Characteristics of the Spectral Canine, Cultural Analysis 18.2 (2020), 35-74​
 

Attachments

  • Zmarzlinski, Adam . The Black Dog, Origins and Symbolic Characteristics of the Spectral Canine...pdf
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The Black Dog of the Blue Ridge
Overview:
In Botetourt County, Virginia, there is a pass that was much trav- elled by people going to Bedford County and by visitors to mineral springs in the vicinity. In the year 1683 the report was spread that at the wildest part of the trail in this pass there appeared at sunset a great black dog, who, with majestic tread, walked in a listening attitude about two hundred feet and then turned and walked back.

Source: Herrick, R. F. “The Black Dog of the Blue Ridge.” The Journal of American Folklore, vol. 20, no. 77, 1907, pp. 151–52​
 

Attachments

  • Herrick, R. F. “The Black Dog of the Blue Ridge.” The Journal of American Folklore, vol. 20, n...pdf
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In the month of May 2002, while I was investigating several cases of mutilations and deaths of farmyard animals in the province of Mendoza, I had an event related to a large black dog.
Local residents claimed that the animal killings had been caused by a vampire. I arrived in town very early in the morning and shortly after getting off the bus, along with my research partner, we were approached by a large black dog. This animal followed us throughout the day in which we walked more than 4 kilometers interviewing eyewitnesses of the phenomena that happened exactly 30 years ago. It was only when we finished our work late in the afternoon that the dog walked away without us being able to visualize where. As a curiosity, the dog had very dirty fur and the other dogs in the town barked at him constantly but never came close to attacking him. The animal also did not have close contact with us, it kept walking a few meters away and every time we stopped at a home, it repeated the same thing, staying apart and still.​
 
A Buckinghamshire Black Dog, 1880
Tebbult, L. F. (1945). A Buckinghamshire Black Dog. Folklore, 56(1), 222–222..jpg

Source: Tebbult, L. F. (1945). A Buckinghamshire Black Dog. Folklore, 56(1), 222–222.​
 
The Black Dog at the River of Tears
Overview:
In 1991, Elizabeth Benson published an article in which she surveyed data concerning the role of the dog in representations of the other world among Amerindians [Benson 1991]. The article was clearly influenced by Roe the principal proponent of structuralism among the US ethnographers studying the native people of South America [e.g. Roe 1982]. Benson strove to show the general association of the dog with the other world in the ethnography of Amerindians as it was realised in different, yet homologous, forms among different groups. Intentionally or not, Benson demonstrated an uneven regional distribution of such representations.

Source: Berezkin, Yuri .The Black Dog at the River of Tears, Some Amerindian Representations of the Passage to the Land of the Dead and their Eurasian Roots, Forum for Anthropology and culture, Nº2, 2005, pp.130-170​
 

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  • Berezkin, Yuri .The Black Dog at the River of Tears, Some Amerindian Representations of the Pa...pdf
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Mac Phee´s Black Dog
Overview:
The Black dog grew a handsome whelp and was admired by all who saw it. What was very peceuliar about it was its love for home. When Mac Phee and his hounds went out hunting the black dog shown no inclination to follow.
Source: Fionn, Tales of the Hebrides, The Celtic Monthly, Vol.VI, 1898, pp.18-19​
 

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  • Fionn, Tales of the Hebrides, The Celtic Monthly, Vol.VI, 1898, pp.18-19.pdf
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Animals and Monsters
Overview:
From every lane nnd alley in the lower parts of the town sally forth men nnd youths in clean moleskins and corduroys, each invariably accompanied by some yelping cur, tho lenst of whose faults is to be ugly. It is no wonder, then, that the Doo should be of frequent occurrence on the signboard. Pepys mentions n t.wern of that name in Westminster, where, about the time of the Restoration, he used occasionally to show his merry face. In l 7G8, tho nuthor of the "Art of Living in London," recommended the Dog in Holywell Street for n quiet good dinner

Source: Larwood, Jacob & Hotter, John Camden . History of the Signboards, 1875, pp.192-194​
 

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  • Larwood, Jacob & Hotter, John Camden . History of the Signboards, 1875, pp.192-194.pdf
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Blaze has been showing repeats of Mystic Britain, which included an interview with Black Shuck last week. The prog mentioned a Dig at Leiston Abbey (Suffolk) where a dog skeleton was found in 2014. This was reckoned to have been interred about 30 years after the scratch marks were discovered on the door of Blythburgh Church - the dog being big enough to easily reach 7 feet up with its front paws.

Black Shuck.jpg
 
Bad Bungle said:
Blaze has been showing repeats of Mystic Britain, which included an interview with Black Shuck last week. The prog mentioned a Dig at Leiston Abbey (Suffolk) where a dog skeleton was found in 2014. This was reckoned to have been interred about 30 years after the scratch marks were discovered on the door of Blythburgh Church - the dog being big enough to easily reach 7 feet up with its front paws.

View attachment 83728
Click to expand...

“Radiocarbon dating was unfortunately much less informative, indicating a date of either 1650-1690, 1730-1810 or post 1920 (Beta-383664). Though these dates established that the skeleton was certainly later than the fabled story of Black Shuck’s reported sighting in 1577…”

https://digventures.com/2014/10/digventures-and-the-bbc-one-show-devil-dog-black-shuck-returns/

maximus otter
 
Kondoru said:
Lots of Black Dog place names in Wiltshire.
Click to expand...

IMG_6694.jpeg


OS map of Warminster and Trowbridge area.
Here are possible explanations for the name,.

And there’s Black Dog crossroads near Devizes which is an accident black spot.

I like looking on OS maps to see if there’s any tumuli, ruins etc in places like this, just out of curiosity, but there doesn’t seem to be.
 
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