LEGEND OF BLACK SHUCK

Black Shuck is one of the oldest English Legends about a huge ghostly spirit dog with a black shaggy coat and flaming red eyes, which is said to roam the East Anglian countryside and beyond. 

The legend dates back hundreds if not thousands of years. No one knows for sure where Black Shuck came from but there are plenty of theories and as the years have passed, like all legends, the stories have become more and more elaborate. Hence there are now probably as many variations on the legend as there are varieties of Gin. 

Some people believe that the demon dog has its origins in Norse mythology and that Black Shuck accompanied the Norse God Thor to Great Britain on the Viking long boats thousands of years ago. One story tells of Black Shuck being a war dog of Odin, who came to the British Isles with the Vikings and never left.

Author W.A Dutt described Shuck in his 1901 Highways & Byways in East Anglia, as a huge black dog that prowls along dark lanes and lonesome field footpaths, where, although his howling makes the hearer’s blood run cold, his footfalls make no sound.