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Junes Edinburgh Fortean Soceity talk will be on the folklore of Black Dogs.In Wiltshire there are said to be over 50 Black Dog place names.
Junes Edinburgh Fortean Soceity talk will be on the folklore of Black Dogs.In Wiltshire there are said to be over 50 Black Dog place names.
Isn't there a legend about a monkey type creature haunting parts of Staffordshire/Black Country? - have a very vague memory of reading about it years agoSince it came up as a joke in the Rendlesham thread, it's worth mentioning the Shug Monkey:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shug_Monkey
The Shug Monkey is sometimes described as exhibiting parts of different / additional animals, but the monkey face seems to be a constant.
What did you see?One of my few paranormal experiences was with something I believe to be Black Shuck.
Nick Redfern has written about the Shug Monkey and also the Man Monkey, both of this area:Isn't there a legend about a monkey type creature haunting parts of Staffordshire/Black Country? - have a very vague memory of reading about it years ago
Yes, seen by a number of witnesses near to a secluded bridge set against woodland. Redfern interviewEd witnesses himself so it wasn’t just some old local legendI think the Monkey Man (or Man Monkey, take your pick) is a 'canal ghost' of sorts:
https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/news-and-views/features/ghostly-guide-to-the-shropshire-union-canal
Cool .. and I found out recently that Cromer also has a second paranormal ghost dog sometimes seen on the beach completely separate it seems from the Shuck legend .. two ghost dogs ? .. we're just being greedy now !
I've seen foxes before sunrise on the beach here, so close to the sea they almost get their feet wet. No red eyes as far as I can recall though.When Haining visited Cromer to do some research for his book, he wrote that he was staring out to sea one evening from his hotel bedroom window, and spotted a large black dog running along the foreshore, leaping over the groynes with no apparent owner in sight.
The Gloucestershire / Warwickshire border area has the amusingly-named Mickleton Hooter, which modern references suppose to be a sort of dog-type, or possibly cow-type, thing.
While I'd thought this might be another interesting local creature, sadly this version of the story seems to be bollocks, and relatively modern bollocks at that. A 1912 article by F.S.Potter classes the Hooter as a "being", suggests that "he is only to be heard", and then blames the sound on foxes. Meanwhile a still older version of the story is given by James Stone back in the 19th century: here the Hooter is in fact the ghost of the only son of Sir William Greville, who was shot dead in Mickleton Hollow, which was afterwards haunted by his "unearthly moanings and screechings". When (rarely) visible he was supposed to ride a black hunter and be accompanied by a pack of hounds, so perhaps the latter are what suggested the dog.
With reference to the inquiry about a mysterious noise in a wood near Mickleton, in Gloucestershire, I beg to say I know the place well, and can state from personal knowledge that this noise is still heard at intervals. It is a most awful wailing sort of sound, which, when I heard it, appeared to rise and fall ; sounding sometimes quite close, and the next instant dying away in the distance, and resembling no other noise I ever heard.
I haven't finished with the Mickleton Hooter yet (the baby kept us up half the night so I had lots more time for 'research'). It turns out the Hooter's origin story is probably more interesting than the ghost itself.
Lodovic Greville was the Lord of the Manor at Mickleton in the mid 16th century. He had a vast estate put together with family profits from the wool trade, but was a bit of a spendthrift and constantly in debt, particularly due to his attempts to build a spectacular new house, 'Mount Greville'.
As part of his financial dealings he instigated a murder plot quite bizarrely Fortean in its own right, centreing on the murder of a servant and the impersonation of the servant on his deathbed by someone else who would leave all "his" property to Greville. This started to unravel when one of the accomplices began boasting about the plot in Warwick pubs, so Greville had him murdered as well. Greville was arrested in 1587 for this quite idiotic series of crimes but then elected to be 'pressed to death' (suffocated under a pile of large rocks) rather than enter a plea, so that his family wouldn't have to give up any of the property due to a conviction. However, before his death he managed to put together a large notebook for his son, Edward, listing his various debts, triumphantly noting how he had avoided them and advising how Edward might do the same.
Sir Edward Greville however turned out to be an even bigger spendthrift than his father. Suffice to say that by the time of his death in his sixties, he'd reduced an estate worth about £38,000 to just £27. His widow couldn't even afford to give herself a proper funeral. His only child being a daughter, the Grevilles then disappeared and were forgotten- almost.
Anyway, the Hooter. Edward was Lodovic's second son, and became the heir after accidentally shooting his older brother in the head; at the time Lodovic joked that it was "the best shot he had ever made". And it was the ghost of the elder son who was supposed to emit the wails and screams in the coomb on Mickleton Hill known as the Mickleton Hooter, and which later seems to have been distorted by 20th century writers into a story about a booming cow, or a dog, or something.
In short the Grevilles were one of those families where you'd be very surprised if there wasn't a ghost story about them.
Is this the same Greville family that Fulke belonged to?
The ghosts really do follow them around.Yes, Fulke was a cousin of Edward, from a junior branch of the family.
We are on a short break in Boxford Suffolk, which is where Peter Haining spent his last years according to village history.As someone on another forum once write about Peter Haining
"All the stories are true; Haining just changed the names of people and places, and the things that happened."
Whisht lads had yer gobs.........As for The Lambton Worm, I grew up with the song and the local legend and regularly passed Penshaw Hill where the beast was said to have coiled itself around.
My Grandad used to sing that to me when I was a kid.Whisht lads had yer gobs.........
Mine also, could see Penshaw monument from his house.My Grandad used to sing that to me when I was a kid.
Also, 'The Blaydon Races'.
Mine also, could see Penshaw monument from his house.