In English folklore, Black Shuck, Old Shuck, Old Shock or simply Shuck is the name given to a ghostly black dog which is said to roam the coastline and countryside of East Anglia, one of many such black dogs recorded in folklore across the British Isles. Accounts of Black Shuck form part of the folklore of Norfolk, Suffolk, the Cambridgeshire Fens and Essex, and descriptions of the creature's appearance and nature vary considerably; it is sometimes recorded as an omen of death, but, in other instances, is described as companionable.
Artist's impression of the Black Shuck. Commonly described features include large red eyes, bared teeth and shaggy black fur.
Title page of Rev. Abraham Fleming's account of the appearance of the ghostly black dog "Black Shuck" at the church of Bungay, Suffolk: "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 yeere of our Lord 1577. in a great tempest of violent raine, lightning, and thunder, the like wherof hath been seldome seene. With the appeerance of an 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."
English folklore consists of the myths and legends of England, including the English region's mythical creatures, traditional recipes, urban legends, proverbs, superstitions, and folktales. Its cultural history is rooted in Celtic, Christian, Nordic and Germanic folklore.
A sculpture of the mythical Green Man on the Church of St Mary and St David, Kilpeck
Poor little birdie teased, by the 19th-century English illustrator Richard Doyle. It depicts an elf as imagined in English folktales.
King Guthrum being appointed as a Christian by King Alfred before becoming the ruler of East Anglia
An image of 'The Questing Beast', a monster slain by King Arthur and his knights in Malory's Morte Darthur