In the midst of a thunder storm on 4th August 1577 Black Shuck appeared in Suffolk, the huge black dog with blazing red eyes burst in through the door of the Church of St Mary in Bungay and proceeded to run "all along down the body of the church with great swiftnesse and incredible haste, among the people, in a visible fourm and shape, passed between two persons, as they were kneeling uppon their knees, and occupied in prayer as it seemed, wrung the necks of them bothe at one instant clene backward, in somuch that even at a momet where they kneeled, they stragely dyed" (quote Abraham Fleming)
"This black dog or the divel in such a likenesse" (quote Abraham Fleming) then made his way to Blythburgh, just outside Southwold on the coast, where the storm was lashing down upon the Church of The Holy Trinity.
Black Shuck threw open the church doors and leapt into the church in the middle of a service:
"All down the church in midst of fire, the hellish monster flew, and passing onward to the quire, he many people slew" (quote Enid Porter The Folklore of East Anglia)
The church spire was struck by lightning and came crashing down caving the roof in. Black Shuck departed leaving his paw marks burnt upon the door, these can be seen tothis day and are known locally as the fingerprints of the Devil.
And so the legend of Black Shuck began.
Sightings of Black Shuck, the huge spectral black dog, said by some to be an omen of impending death, especially if you look into it's flaming eyes, have been reported all over East Anglia.
One such report from Cromer, Norfolk, tells of a boy trying to play with the dog. Shuck obliged and led the child down to play in the sea, but once in the water Shuck growling showed his teeth and drove the frightened boy deeper and deeper out to sea.
Fortunately for the young chap some crab fisherman noticed what was happening and went to the rescue, they dragged the boy into their boat whereupon Shuck burst into a ball of flame and disappeared in a cloud of steam.
To this day sightings of Black Shuck continue in Norfolk, Suffolk and the rest of East Anglia, not all of them malevolent. Black dog sightings are also common to folklore all around Great Britain under many different regional names.
Illustration: The title page of the Rev Abraham Fleming's account of the appearance of Black Shuck in St Mary's Church, Bungay.
"A straunge and terrible Wunder wrought very late in the parish church of Bungay, a town of no great distance from the citie of Norwich, namely the fourth of this August, in the yeers of our Lord 1577. in a great tempest of violent raine, lightning and thunder, the like wherof hath been seldom seene. With the appeerance of a horrible shaped thing, sensibly perceiued of the people then and there assembled. Drawen into a plain method according to the written copye by Abraham Fleming"
This black dog, or the divel in such a likenesse (God hee knoweth al who worketh all,) running all along down the body of the church with great swiftnesse, and incredible haste, among the people, in a visible fourm and shape, passed between two persons, as they were kneeling uppon their knees, and occupied in prayer as it seemed, wrung the necks of them bothe at one instant clene backward, in somuch that even at a mome[n]t where they kneeled, they stra[n]gely dyed
Illustration: The title page of the Rev Abraham Fleming's account of the appearance of Black Shuck in St Mary's Church, Bungay.
"A straunge and terrible Wunder wrought very late in the parish church of Bungay, a town of no great distance from the citie of Norwich, namely the fourth of this August, in the yeers of our Lord 1577. in a great tempest of violent raine, lightning and thunder, the like wherof hath been seldom seene. With the appeerance of a horrible shaped thing, sensibly perceiued of the people then and there assembled. Drawen into a plain method according to the written copye by Abraham Fleming"
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