Tales of black spectral hounds abound throughout the United Kingdom and the general opinion is that you don’t really want to meet one of these on a dark night.

There have not been that many reports of these dogs in recent years but they do have a long history with the first English account appearing in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle of 1127:

"Let no-one be surprised at the truth of what we are about to relate, for it was common knowledge throughout the whole country that immediately after his arrival [Abbot Henry of Poitou] at the Abbey of Peterborough - it was the Sunday when they sing Exurge Quare o, D - many men both saw and heard a great number of huntsmen hunting. The huntsmen were black, huge and hideous, and rode on black horses and on black he-goats and their hounds were jet black with eyes like saucers and horrible. This was seen in the very deer park of the town of Peterborough and in all the woods that stretch from that same town to Stamford, and in the night the monks heard them sounding and winding their horns. Reliable witnesses who kept watch in the night declared that there might well have been as many as twenty or thirty of them winding their horns as near they could tell. This was seen and heard from the time of his arrival all through Lent and right up to Easter."

Most accounts agree in the description of the hounds, usually they are as large as a small calf. Their eyes are said to be flaming, fiery, blazing or glowing and are as large as saucers, normally red but sometimes yellow. They make little or no noise and usually all you can hear is the soft pad of their feet as they follow you. They appear from nowhere and can disappear just as quickly either by fading away, vanishing as you look away briefly or even sinking into the earth. Some have even been known to vanish with a flash or explosion (though this sounds more like a stage magician’s trick). A lot of the descriptions are confused but this is probably due to the shock engendered in the person who seems them. The only things that are certain in the descriptions is that when you see one you will know it.

The hounds are usually associated with a particular area most often outside in rural areas but sometimes even indoors. They will haunt roads, crossroads, gallows and burial sites and are seen quite often near water. Bedfordshire’s own Black Shuck (Galleytrot) haunts the roads around Millbrook to the west of Ampthill in the middle of the county. To encounter one of these hounds is generally thought to be a sign that someone (you or a member of your family) will die within twelve months, this is what happened to the unfortunate woman who saw one at Millbrook.

The name ‘shuck’ is thought to derive from Norse mythology and is based on ‘Shukir’ the huge dog of war that belonged to Odin and Thor. Other historians believe the name is derived from the Anglo-Saxon ‘scucca’ which meant a demon or devil. In Hrothgar’s epic poem Beowulf the word appears in association with the monster Grendel, “scuccum ond scimmum” (‘Shucks and Shines’) though its true meaning is not very clear. Whatever the origin the tales of the phantom hounds are some of England’s oldest legends dating back over a thousand years.

Mythology says that the hounds haunt old roads that follow leylines, paths of invisible earth energy. Churches are often sited on these lines which could be used by a spirit to travel from one graveyard to the next so they were sometimes called ‘Corpse Ways’. Paranormal explanations suggest that the hounds are the spirits of former working dogs or dogs that suffered cruelty and violent deaths. It may even be possible for the spirit of a person to materialise in animal form.

Whatever the explanation might prove to be these hounds are seen from the USA to Croatia and Scandinavia to Italy. “In the beginning of January, 1905, about half-past seven in the evening, I was walking up from the Halfway [a local inn]. I suddenly saw an animal that seemed to be like a large, black dog appear quite suddenly out of the hedge and run across the road quite close in front of me; I thought it was the dog belonging to the curate. I was just going to call it to send it home, when it suddenly changed its shape, and turned into a black donkey standing on its hind legs. This creature had two glowing eyes, which appeared to me to be almost as big as saucers. I looked at it in astonishment for a minute or so, when it suddenly vanished. After that I hurried home, for the sight of this creature with the large shining eyes gave me a shock. The evening was a light one for the time of year.”

Black Shuck has even found its way into fiction. In March 1901 Sir Arthur Conan Doyle returned from South Africa where he had contracted enteric fever. Doyle chose to recuperate at the Royal Links Hotel in Cromer, Norfolk, where he was told the tale of Black Shuck by his friend Bertram Fletcher Robinson. Doyle was so fascinated by the tale that he used it as the basis for the ‘Hound of the Baskervilles’. By the time he started writing the book Doyle had moved to Dartmoor so he used that as the setting for the story but the description of Baskerville Hall matches Cromer Hall almost perfectly. The owner of Cromer Hall was Doyle’s friend Bertram Fletcher Robinson who just happened to have a manservant named Henry Baskerville.