NEIL ARNOLD: A Load Of Old Bull?

There appear to be a handful of tales pertaining to the materialisation of hellhounds (phantom black dogs) on dark and stormy nights. Some of these cases are attached to churches in the sense that, as the legend goes in varying yarns, the congregation gathered is terrorised by an abominable creature that appears amidst the thunder claps, lightning bolts and pounding rain. In the case of Black Shuck, the hellhound of Suffolk/Norfolk, such a legend has remained potent for centuries. This year my book Haunted Ashford will be published, and in it I’ve included a weird tale concerning an old church in this large Kentish town, which according to legend, was visited by a horrifying monster centuries ago, but such an apparition was far from being a spectral black dog.

‘Monsters, ghosts and ghouls, are often said to appear during terrible thunderstorms, but the apparition which visited the Church of St Mary at Great Chart in 1613, chose a summery day to make its awful mark. As vicar Hadrian Savaria began his sermon a fearsome creature materialised before the congregation. The beast appeared in the form of a great black bull which petrified those in attendance and were keen to flee the church. The entity stamped its feet, snorted, and its fiery eyes were glowing for all to see. The monster built up its aggression and then stormed through the rows, battering those who were unable to escape in time. Some folk were badly injured and three people were killed as the spectre charged into the North Wall and exploded into a ball of furious flame. The wall was demolished and a powerful, nauseating odour permeated the air. The vicar escaped with minor burn marks to his garments.
Some theories have since been put forward to explain the manifestation. There are those who argue that the monster was not a supernatural beast but in fact a phenomenon known as ball lightning, said to usually occur during raging storms. Ball lightning, although dismissed by some experts, is said to occur when, according to the Wisegeek website, ‘…large clouds of charged water molecules are put into an excited state by electrical activity, briefly causing light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation, or the laser effect.’ This usually results in a small, spherical, fiery object which materialises for a few seconds. This phenomenon occurs infrequently and has never been understood. However, could such a phenomenon explain what took place in Great Chart in 1613 ? Probably not, when you consider that the service was not conducted in the middle of stormy weather. Sceptics argue that similar events have occurred nationwide over the years, usually during thunderstorms, and such monsters are believed to be nothing more than forms created by terrified, and often naïve witnesses keen to explain the apparition away as something unholy. Oddly, in 1983 another terrifying beast was seen in the village and observed by four witnesses who described the monster as resembling a shaggy, black dog with burning red eyes. The spectral hound was seen to pad up a country lane and head towards the church. The witnesses were in a vehicle travelling in the opposite direction to the creature. Rather coincidentally, Charles Igglesden, in his third volume of A Saunter Through Kent With Pen And Pencil, from 1902, writes of a sign board of a Black Dog hanging over the front door of a house in Great Chart.’

BOOK LAUNCH IN BUNGAY

David Waldron writes....

Hi Jon,

Just thought I should let you know for CFZ members that we are having a launch by my co-author Chris Reeve at St Mary's in Bungay (the site of the 1577 attack) on the 27th of March at midday. It is being hosted by the Friends of St Mary's and the Bungay Museum. It should be a pleasant day out in the Waveney Valley. A chance to see the sights and locations of the story and to speak with one of the most knowledgeable historians on the Black Dog of Bungay and a veritable fountain of information of Suffolk ghost stories and cryptid legends from the Waveney Valley.


You can get a copy of the new book too ;-)


Anyway I most definitely recommend it to all and very much wish I was there from far off Australia.


We will have a smaller launch here in Australia in April hosted by the University of Ballarat details will be coming soon.

Now I am off to do more digging into the folklore and stories of Big Cats in Australia. I have to say the more I get into the material the richer and more complex it seems.

best
David Waldron

Paul Haresnape: The Black Dog of Black Dog

The small village of Black Dog is on one of the highest ridges of land between Dartmoor and Exmoor, in the county of Devon, England. At 695 ft. above sea level it enjoys superb views of both moors, especially Dartmoor to the south. The pace of change in these rural parts has been slow and many of the small hill farms that surround Black Dog have been occupied by the same families for generations.

The village and its 18th Century Inn bore the name of ‘Black Boy’ until the emancipation of the slave trade in 1807/8 when it became ‘Black Dog’. [1] The former name is perhaps evidence of Plymouth’s involvement in the slave trade extending into rural Devon; but what of the latter name, by which both the village and Inn are still known today?

Theo Brown, in her book Devon Ghosts points the way:

'In the parish of Washford Pyne there are two hamlets, Upper and Lower Black Dog. These take their name from the Inn of that name which stands on a cross roads which was once a wild open heath. Though now a few houses have clustered around it, beside the crossroads is an old well. The local tradition is that there used to be a tunnel leading from the cross roads to the earthworks (Berry Castle) nearly a mile to the south. The mythical tunnel leads from the old well, and at the time of the Civil War, the entrance was guarded by the ghostly BLACK DOG. I heard this from a resident of the hamlet.' [2]

Perhaps this is the same Black Dog that - a few miles to the East - is reputed to haunt the road between the villages of Morchard Bishop and Copplestone? Intriguingly, this spectral hound appears to have put in a relatively recent appearance, being witnessed in 1993 by local resident Robin Brooks. The following graphic account, with a distinctly Fortean twist, was told to his daughter, artist Kirsty Bonning, who owns the Black Dog Studios:

"One late summer evening, I had gone for a walk up to Berry Castle (a mile to the south-east of Black Dog). It was a beautiful evening, calm, still and warm. [I] sat down against the bank of the hedge, how long for, I don't know. I must have fallen asleep. When I woke, I felt a slight chill. I remember looking at my watch, but I don't remember the time. I noticed that the cattle, who [sic] had been at the far end of the field, grazing, had now moved much closer and now I could see that there were about 30 of them, some with claves. They were mostly laid down and chewing the cud. I could hear the soft sounds coming from their contentment. Quite why I did not get straight up, I do not know. I wanted to, but I did not. "

"As I lay there, I became aware of what I can only describe as a presence. The sun had set and all was quiet, except for the soft sound of the cattle and in the distance 3 crows, making their way to roost, silhouetted against the sky. Now I became aware of a large black dog. Why I had not noticed him before, I did not know.

“I remember thinking, "Oh damn, someone is about," and I began to feel anxious and annoyed with myself for not being alert enough."

"I lay there still. I wanted to get to my feet, but somehow I could not. The dog was about 40 feet away. He did not move, or at least hardly so and stood tall and strong. His noble head held high as he sniffed the air, in that way that dogs do when they seem so aware of something that we humans, with our limited senses of hearing and smell do not know. Whose dog?! Where was the owner? A slight disturbed feeling was still in my mind, not given by the dog, but by the thought of the owner, who must be close, but who I could not see."

"I knew of people in the village who owned a large black Labrador dog, but this dog, in build and stature, was not really like that. How many moments had passed from my waking, I do not know, maybe it was only seconds. As I watched, the dog now stepped from the shadow of the bank and still looking in the direction of the village, without paying the least attention to me, he trotted directly towards the cattle. "

"And now, the strangest thing. No-one called or whistled him, but stranger yet, the dog walked right through where the cattle lay. He appeared to go with purpose and made no sound and the cattle, even though some were with calves, seemed completely unconcerned and did not even seem to see him. They were not disturbed in any way and it was a totally unreal experience. The dog disappeared into the darkness of the hedge. This whole thing must have taken only moments. "

"I got up, still wondering at what I had just seen and still expectant of seeing the dog's owner. I made my way back to the lane and then home. All this time, I saw no-one. I have never seen this dog since and as far as I can tell, no-one in the area has seen a dog as I have described. I do not know what I saw. I only know that it was as I have described it. "

"Did I see the ghostly Black Dog of legend?” [3]

I am attending a family lunch this weekend just a mile or so from Black Dog and am looking forward to a stroll to where this sighting occurred; so fingers crossed that the ghostly Black Dog of Black Dog may - just may - put in a rare appearance….

[1] http://www.kirstybonning.co.uk/black_dog_story/legend_of_the_black_dog.shtml
[2] Extract from DEVON GHOSTS by Theo Brown,Published by Jarrold Publishing 1982 ISBN 0-8530-6961-1
[3] http://www.kirstybonning.co.uk/black_dog_story/legend_of_the_black_dog.shtml

PAUL HARESNAPE: Weird Winkleigh 3

A pair of Firedrake dragons, Top Secret Black military aircraft, JFK’s brother, frequent UFO sightings (including a dramatic Close Encounter on a former RAF airfield), crop circles, alien big cats, witchcraft, spectral black dogs, a pub haunted by two ghosts, the discovery of a strange tunnel...Winkleigh in North Devon, England, is an intriguingly Fortean place!

In this, our third and final foray into weird Winkleigh, we lift the lid on a variety of Fortean goings-on that all add weight to my belief that the village is a diverse and active ‘window’ for Fortean activity.

The Kings Arms public house in Winkleigh was built as a coaching inn to serve travellers on the ancient turnpike route between the cities of Exeter and Plymouth. Today it is one of two thriving pubs in the village and still retains its traditional thatched roof as well as, it would seem, two of its former residents:

‘"George been playing up lately?'' asks the chap in the tweed cap. ''Nah, but Cecilia was going some the other week,'' says his drinking companion.’ [A]

Known the landlords and locals as George and Cecelia, these two ghosts seem rather keen to remind staff and customers alike of their presence. George it seems is rather adverse to change in what must have been his former business or local and will register his displeasure by dropping breakables such as crockery and bottles in slow motion [!]. Cecelia is a mischievous little girl who apparently likes to hang on the aprons of waiting staff and knock over pots and pans to gain attention. [B]

But the intrigue doesn’t stop with George and Cecilia. One of the pub’s dining rooms, sited in what was formerly a courtyard, incorporates a glass-capped, presumably spring-fed well. Or so people thought until a team from the local Cave & Mine Exploration Group decided in 2002 to undertake a full survey of the ancient feature. They successfully drained what was found to be a 30-foot deep stone-lined shaft and were astonished to discover two 5-foot high tunnels, one leading towards the North West and the other in the direction of the church.

Silver and even gold deposits have been found elsewhere in Devon and it has thus been theorised that some enterprising villagers were engaged in surreptitiously mining for such precious - but highly taxable - metals! [C] However, I cannot help but think that as Winkleigh is home to a pair of legendary dragons, and, given the association between dragons and vast hordes of treasure - mightn’t they have been tunnelling for a rather different reason?

I grew up in the village of Witheridge, about 10 miles to the East of Winkleigh. It was whilst at primary school in the late 70s that I first heard of the ‘alien’ big cats the local farmers were sighting on Knowstone and Witheridge moors (both a few miles to the NE, towards Exmoor). The creatures were variously described as puma, lynx and leopard-like by rural folk who certainly knew their foxes from their badgers (!). A large number of sheep were being killed and the farming community had taken it upon themselves to track down - and no doubt eradicate - the elusive creatures. However, the killings continued and by 1983 the story was picked up by the press, who would dub these far-ranging cats ‘The Beast(s) of Exmoor.’

It was at this time that a resident of our village had a close encounter with a large puma-like cat whilst driving the school minibus. This sighting made headlines in the local and regional press:

‘I could have touched it...It came out of the woods in front of me. It had a long tail, a puma-like head, pricked ears and a grey-body’. [D]

As Mrs Yendell had been my next door neighbour for a number of years I can at least vouch for her integrity!

The Government of the day drafted in Devon-based Royal Marines; however, not only did the creatures avoid capture but sightings were being reported of large cats of varying descriptions the length and breadth of Britain. In the years since, there have been literally thousands of big cat sightings in Britain, with Devon consistently at or near the top of the sightings table, although like all Forteana, they have proven to be rather camera shy.

The authorities continued to deny the existence of these big cats right up until January of this year when - under the Freedom of Information Act - The Forestry Commission admitted that their own rangers had, on two separate occasions, watched big cats through night-viewing equipment whilst undertaking deer population surveys in the Forest of Dean, Gloucester, England. [E]

Moving closer to home, the North Devon Journal reported on 15th January 1999 that:

‘Newquay Zoo managing director and big cat expert Mike Thomas said a puma, with a territory of up to 40 miles and no den, would survive "brilliantly" in North Devon because of its landscape - a mixture of rocky, wooded and open spaces. "The climate is perfect for them," he said. "Their main diet would be smaller prey, such as mice, voles, rabbits and birds. There have also been some reports of cats attacking lambs." He said this sighting could be a second, third or even fourth generation puma which would have been born into the North Devon climate.’

No surprise, then, that there have been many big cat sightings in the countryside around Winkleigh over the years. Too numerous to list here, I would recommend the excellent website http://www.bigcatsinbritain.org/ and an ordnance survey map of the area to those wishing to learn more.

Local legend has it that a spectral black dog haunts the A3072 between Copplestone and North Tawton, to the south of Winkleigh and an area of former Roman occupation. This spectral beast has also been associated with the village of Morchard Bishop to the East of Copplestone [F] Details are elusive and it is a story that I personally would like to investigate further.
Finally, please forgive me for including this final Fortean legend as it belongs to the village of Colebrook, some 10 miles to the SE of Winkleigh. However, it is to my mind the most intriguing and elusive paranormal tale to come out of these parts. In the steep-sided lanes around Colebrook a phantom monkey is said to lurk. This creature apparently has red fur and attacks people! [G] Again, details are elusive but anyone who has read Man-Monkey by Nick Redfern will surely see an eerie parallel here....

Well, I hope you have enjoyed our third and final visit to weird Winkleigh. Personally, I can’t wait for the warmer weather so that I can pack up my tent and spend a long weekend at Cadbury Hill on the look-out for dragons, UFOs et al. If any readers of this blog have any further information on the phenomena we have covered, or know of any other weird happenings in the general area of Mid/North Devon, I would be delighted to hear from them: paulharesnape@yahoo.co.uk


[A] The Daily Telegraph: 14th March 2008
[B] http://www.jackiefreemanphotography.com/
[C] Ibid.
[D] Express & Echo: 29th March 1985
[E] The Daily Telegraph: 7th January 2009
[F] Weird Devon. Downes, Freeman, Inglis. Bossiney Books.
[G] Ibid.

NEIL ARNOLD: Black Dogs and Hairy Men

I have known Neil for fifteen years now, since he was a mod schoolboy with ambitions for adventure and I was an earnest young hippy who merely wanted to start a club for people interested in unknown animals. Nothing much has changed over the years; we are just both a tad older....

KENT BLACK DOGS

I must admit that I was rather shocked to read that some of the more recent Black Dog sightings have been suggested as scarce. Read my MYSTERY ANIMALS OF THE BRITISH ISLES: KENT and you’ll find several very recent phantom hound tales. My mother saw a small black dog whilst ill in bed with pleurisy a few years back. She was sitting up one evening when it appeared a few feet away on the chest of drawers. She blinked a few times and it remained, until it gradually faded from view. It was benign and had long, floppy ears. My book also mentions a 2001 encounter at Blue Bell Hill, involving a motorist and a white hound, which sped across the road causing the motorist to brake. There have also been some very recent sightings not far from Bluewater Shopping Centre of two seemingly spectral canids, which have caused one motorist to crash their vehicle, and others to get detailed glimpses of these wolf-like beasts. They appear very muscular, one having a dark ear, and are bigger than wolves. Investigations at the particularly dark stretch of road they haunt has drawn a blank regards to possible escaped pets.

There was an impressive sighting towards Ashford of a huge, black hound, seen by several passengers in a car one foggy night in the region of Tenterden. This was reported to Fortean Times magazine. I personally believe phantom hound reports, although not common, occur sporadically. Just a case of right place, right time…I’ve also numerous on record from London and Sussex, all of which took place in the last ten years.

HAIRY MAN OF WOULDHAM

Wouldham is a small village in Kent that sits right next to Blue Bell Hill, which for me, remains the country's weirdest village. In my book I noted several bizarre tales concerning witnesses who’d seen red-eyed man-beasts and very recently a lady, who now resides in Norfolk, contacted me to say that when she was a child growing up in the ‘60s at Wouldham, her grandmother used to tell her intriguing tales. One of these was said to date back to the 1920s and her grandmother, who passed away, made notes of this. The lady said that her grandmother used to tell her about the ‘hairy man’ of Wouldham. A humanoid often seen in local woods by children, and certainly adults were made aware of this being. It was completely covered in hair and the story had become embedded in her psyche and was triggered again when she purchased my MYSTERY ANIMALS OF THE BRITISH ISLES: KENT and saw, at the front, an image of a hairy humanoid standing at Blue Bell Hill’s Kit’s Coty House, an ancient structure on the landscape. It’s clear to me that we aren’t dealing with tales of escaped monkeys, but indeed something very much embedded in the fabric of the place, as some kind of folkloric creature which has existed for possibly centuries. It seems as well that the more I write about the creature, the more it stirs up. Around 1997/’98 there was a report in the local newspaper of a gorilla-type creature seen at Blue Bell Hill, and I recall scoffing at the report and believed it was simply down to media drama. Now, it seems that there is, and always has been, a strange humanoid prowling the dark lanes and thickets of a place that I’ve been obsessed with since I was a kid and my dad used to take me there and terrify me with tales of the phantom hitchhiker….
+

BLACK DOG COCK UP

Proof that I am going senile:

COLIN HIGGINS WRITES:

'Hi Jon,

You said, "The other day Max posted a story about a sighting of a phantom black dog. It was, we said, the first post-1950 English sighting we had received."

Sorry to be picky - actually I'm not; I relish pointing out insignificant discrepancies to others as most males of a certain age do - but I posted a 1991 B.D. sighting at Hodsock Priory, North Notts, a few weeks ago.


Best Wishes,

Colin

ANOTHER BLACK DOG SIGHTING

http://forteanzoology.blogspot.com/2009/07/max-blake-gurt-dog-returns.html?showComment=1247059329369#c3854417816497602716

The other day Max posted a story about a sighting of a phantom black dog. It was, we said, the first post-1950 English sighting we had received. We do, by the way, have one from the Isle of Skye in the mid 1970s. But now, as a direct result of this posting, we have received another English contemporary one, this time from East Anglia.

DR DAN WITH AN INTERESTING RESOURCE

DAN HOLDSWORTH WRITES:

Jon,
Having read your story about the phantom black dog, I decided to go looking for an online map of geological faults and similar data. I found http://portal.onegeology.org/

Mooching around on this I happened to discover that Mawnan Old Church is sitting slap bang on top of a geological fault. Now, Google Earth has a layer that shows where there have been earthquakes in the past.

There was an earthquake just a little away from Mawnan in July 23, 1966 01:50:04 UTC at a depth of 33.00 km (20.51 mi). So, that fault was active then and is very likely still creeping a bit to this day, and very likely still churning out geomagnetism and the like.

Interesting, yes?

(Oh, and there are geological faults shown near Somerset, but nothing much shown near the northern bit).

MAX BLAKE: The Gurt Dog returns

Phenomena seem to be of a certain time and place. Despite claims to the contrary, crop circles, for example, are almost exclusively a phenomenon of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Even the classic Loch Ness monster sightings are mostly a post 1933 phenomenon, and `flying triangles` are a very recent affair. But some phenomena that were once relatively common seem to have vanished by the wayside; entombed toads, for example, have hardly been heard of during the last century, and Celtic black dogs - whilst they inhabit the pages of fortean literature, the most recent reliable English sources in the CFZ files are from the 1950s. This has now changed, as Max reports....

Yes indeed, I am back from scampering around the South West hunting for more beer. My quest has taken me to the increasingly eco-conscious Glastonbury Festival, where the mighty cider bus and its cider brandy helped fuel me on dark, err, summer nights; Shangri-la, home of a particularly attractive bipedal panda and more strong beer; and finally, Cornwall, where whisky and lager were the order of the day.

My tale begins a few months ago, in a dark gloomy biology lab. I am pouring over a rat dissection, whilst my partner in the study plays the “famous game” with my name. For those not in the know, this is an odd game whereby you google someone’s name and count how many references there are to them on the first 5 pages of Google. The more famous you are, the higher your score and then you win a prize, usually a small cake.

After we found that my name produces a lot of hits to this very website (try it, get us more hits!), most of which were to do with big cats, a friend shouted across the table that:

“Maybe that was what I saw the other night!”

Hold on! What? This is now the third of my close friends to have seen a big black “something” out on the roads in north Somerset. I asked her to describe what she saw and to draw a quick sketch of it. The description is as follows:

“I was driving home at about 22:30 after taking my boyfriend back to his house. I decided to take the more fun route home via the country lanes that link our houses. Halfway home, a huge black animal walked out of the bushes on my right hand side. I did an emergency stop to prevent myself from hitting it. It’s eyes glowed in the dark, and when it walked over into the front of the car it looked at me straight in the eye. It looked like a huge dog; like an Alsatian but much bigger; bigger than any dog I have ever seen. It had a long tail which curled at the end with shaggy fur. The eyes were huge and crazy, fierce red in colour but in such a way that the animal looked mad. It continued looking at me before it walked off in an odd manner to the left of the car where it melted and merged into the bushes without disturbing anything, something which seemed a hard feat for such a huge animal. I could not see it after it went into the side of the road, the eyes were probably blocked by branches.

“If pushed to give measurements for it, I would say that it weighed over 100kgs, its head was long like a wolves’, whilst it’s total length must have been over 7’. It did not seem threatening, despite the eyes. I did not want to get out of the car to follow it, but it never seemed hostile to me being in it’s area, just dismissive.”

The sheer size of the beast, the red “crazy” eyes and the odd way that it walked and moved into the bushes make me think that this was a phantom black dog. Now, I am hardly an authority on this particular zooform, but does anyone have any idea what it could be? A big cat is right out, the long muzzle and long coat drop this one pretty quickly. If it was a large domestic or feral dog, the eyes would have possibly gone a red colour in the blaze of the car’s lights, but this is a colour that seems liquid, and would be quite different to the crazy eyes described. Surely everyone has seen a dog’s eyes at night when a torch is shone on them; they glow, but not a fiery red. But the odd walk, the way it merged with the bushes on the left of the car and the strange eyes are a bit of a thorn in this theory’s side.

Somerset’s Gurt Dog is the best candidate for the explanation. Usually appearing as a huge dog with shaggy black fur and glowing red eyes, the zooform perfectly matched the description. The Gurt Dog is usually seen by roads and footpaths (check!), at night, and walks either in front of the viewer, or it follows them. It is supposedly benevolent, unlike the malevolent dogs which haunt the rest of the country. It is supposed to keep children safe out on the moors and can guide lost travellers home again. However, in the 60s a black dog appeared to two people, and they both died shortly afterward. Seeing as my friend has not died yet, nor suffered any ill (touch wood), one hopes that the same fate will not befall her.

If we want to make a bit of a jump, this sighting can be explained by the domestic dog theory. The size has been exaggerated due to shock, the odd walk due to a wound or a characteristic of its ‘breed’, and the red eyes exaggerated, again from shock. Then we have a normal dog (feral or not). I, however, feel that this is a bit of a leap too far to explain the sighting. I say that the Gurt Dog of Somerset has risen once more.

NEIL ARNOLD: Sussex Spook Lore: Phantom hound or black leopard?

I have known Neil for fifteen years, now; since he was a mod schoolboy with ambitions for adventure and I was an earnest young hippie who merely wanted to start a club for people interested in unknown animals. Nothing much has changed over the years. We are just both a tad older.

From Richard Jefferies Wild Life In A Southern County (1879):

‘Near by the hollow, where the stream crosses the lane, is another spirit, but of an indefinite kind, that does not seem to take shape, but causes those who go past at the time when it has power to feel a mortal horror.

A black dog may be seen in at least two different places: the wayfarer is suddenly surprised to find a gigantic animal of the deepest jet trotting by his side, or he sees a dark shadow detach itself from the bushes and take the form of a dog. The black dog has perhaps more vitality, and survives in more localities than all the apparitions that in the olden times were sworn to by persons of the highest veracity. They may still be heard of in many a nook and corner. I have known people of the present day who were positive that there really was “something” weird in the places where the dog was said to appear.

It is supposed that horses are peculiarly liable to take fright and run away, to shy, or stumble, and break their knees, at a certain spot in the road. They go very well till just on passing the fatal spot a sudden fear seizes them as if they could see something invisible to men; sometimes they bolt headlong, sometimes stand stock-still and shiver, or throw the rider by a rapid side movement. In the daytime – for this supernatural effect is felt in broad day as well as at night – the horse more frequently falls or stumbles, as if checked by an invisible force in the midst of his career. This, too, is a living superstition, and some persons will recount a whole string of accidents that have happened within a few yards; till at last, such is the force of iteration, the most incredulous admit it to be a series of remarkable coincidences. These last two, the black dog and the dangerous place in the road, are believed in by people of a much higher grade than carters…

The carters have a story about horses which had spent the night in a meadow being found the next morning in a state of exhaustion, as if they had been ridden furiously during the hours of darkness. They were totally unfit for work the next day. Instances are even given where men have hidden in a tree with a gun, and when the horses began to gallop fired at something indistinct sitting on their haunches, which something at once disappeared, and the excitement ceased. But these things are said to have happened a long time ago.’

THE BIG THREE: Colin Higgins

A FEW WEEKS AGO WE ASKED VARIOUS BLOGGO REGULARS TO TELL US WHAT WERE THEIR TOP THREE FAVOURITE MYSTERY ANIMALS... AND WHY

One of my favourite guest blogs over the last few weeks has been Colin Higgins from Yorkshire, who - incidentally - was the winner of the compy in January's `On the Track`, where he won my everlasting admiration by recognising Surabaya Johnny by the ever lovely Marianne Faithfull. He also went on the lash with Shane McGowan back in his student days, and is obviously a very fine fellow...

Big Three - Scary Beasties at Home

Giant Pike

One winter’s day I sat in boat with a very successful pike angler and posed the question, ‘Are there any 50lb pike in the UK?’ Without any hesitation he replied, ‘no’. An unambiguous response from a man familiar with 30 lb fish - a size many fishermen spend a lifetime searching for unsuccessfully.

Yet despite his dismissal of the idea history is full of tales of giant Esox, some almost twice as big as our fifty, many undoubtedly mythical, other with a provenance more compelling. Official rod-caught records from these islands are all inside the half-century weight, while the largest known European pike checked in at 67.1 lbs. Beyond these attested figures captors and weights are fuzzy but beguiling: The Great Pike of Whittlesea Mere, Mr Holmes of Wargrave’s pike, Mr. J. J. Dempsey’s Boatman’s pike, The Irish Constabulary pike, The Knock Ross pike, Owen Owen’s pike, The Lough Derg pike, topped by a monster of 90 lbs killed with an oar.

Modern giants are usually found in large waters, typically reservoirs stocked for trout fishing. Stock fish eaters tend to be fast growing, short-lived individuals whereas pike necessary to meet the size of legend thrived on neglect - or at least neglect by anglers and fishery proprietors.
One of the principal food targets for large pike is smaller pike, a fact ignored or forgotten by riparian owners who set nets to catch big predators in the belief they’re protecting trout and salmon stocks. The converse is the case with a large number of small pike eating their way rapidly through the food chain, a situation going some way to ensuring the giants of yore are no longer to be found.

Ah, you say, but are people safe having a quick dip or will we be devoured by a freshwater shark? Incidents of pike attacking humans appear when a pond has somehow been denuded of prey fish, inviting the starving esox to make fast and loose with a bather’s limbs. None are fatal but bites are painful. Pike have been known to bite the noses of horses and cattle, including a case where the frightened beast ran panic stricken across a field with the fish attached, as well as dogs and cats.

While I’m more hesitant than m’learned mate in limiting the potential size of domestic pike I’d bet on other species as likely fodder for lake monsters legends.

Black Dogs

I know, I know. We’re supposed to be sticking to animals that have a chance of existing not bugbears, spooks, zooforms and the products of imagination or Brown Ale. Yet if out of place felines, why not corporeal - or at least momentarily solid - giant canines?
A lot of postulating has accreted around black dogs and into the Fortean consciousness; they are guardians, place spirits, remnants of old religions, tulpas of a former age. Each notion as good as the next but I’m interested in the recurring motif; a dog in a nation familiar with dogs but excessively large, mostly black and associated with roads and tracks.

Each year the family travel to Hodsock Priory, an historic house in North Nottinghamshire and sometime home to the Sheriff of Nottingham (a mental image of Basil Rathbone in tights is never far away) for the wonderful display of snowdrops. I’m always ready for new growth at that time of year and the grounds are festooned in a mass of small white flower heads poking through seemingly dead winter ground. It’s as good a place as any to top up on hope and ponder the numinous in nature but a strange incident took place here in early summer. On 11th May 1991 at 2.14am the road nearby was subject to what appears to be an archetypal black dog sighting.

Victoria Rice-Heaps’ was travelling from her boyfriend’s house when the car headlights picked out two eyes some distance ahead of her small Fiat and she slowed to a crawl. She had grown up with dogs all her life but what emerged was notably different. “It had very shiny fur and a short coat, the nearest thing I’ve seen to it in size was a Great Dane, but it had a good 18” over a dog of that breed. It’s ears were erect and it appeared to be dragging something quite large across the road.”

Another vehicle approached and the driver of a red Montego estate wound down the window to ask if anything was wrong. Victoria wanted to know if he could see the animal? “At this moment he shouted ‘Oh Jesus’ and sped off into the night.” By the time she looked again the dog had disappeared.

As ever such reports have to be taken on face value but of all the creatures reported Black Dogs are one of the least likely to suffer misidentification. Are BDs be any more unreal than big cats and other crypto fauna, or a different manifestation of the same thing?

British Great White Sharks

The greatest marine predator of them all in local waters? No definitive proof of British GWS and the poor creatures are becoming scarce in the Atlantic but certainly possible. One was recorded from the mouth of the Loire, another caught off La Rochelle and in the west from the Gulf of Saint Lawrence in Newfoundland, so England is potentially within their territory. Prof. Compagno in ‘Sharks of the World’ Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) catalogue extends the Great White’s range to include the English Channel, North and Irish Sea, though without specific evidence.

Periodic tabloid madness, usually to coincide with the summer season has tales of half-bitten seals or dodgy video footage of GWS in British waters, almost certainly Porbeagles or Mako. Even so a few such reports seem better informed and fish caught in nets are larger than might be expected for Mako. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find concrete evidence Carcharodon carcharias had been noshing on local pinnipeds, particularly when you consider a tropical nurse shark has been photographed by divers off Alderney and comber and louvar have been caught on the south coast in these globally warmed times.

They are my Big 3 this week, ask again Jon and they might be different!

FROM THE ARCHIVES: An unjustifiably obscure black dog encounter

In the Transactions of the Devonshire Association Vol 12, 1880 is the following story:

"The Black Dog that Hunts the Moor” - A few years ago two ladies from the North of England made a tour of pleasure into the county of Devon. In their journeyings they rode on the outside of the coach from Okehampton to Tavistock, in order that they might see some portion of the far-famed Dartmoor. Twilight came on whilst they were crossing the moor. Suddenly their attention was aroused by the agitation and excitement of the coachman, who in terror exclaimed, "There, there do you see that?" On being questioned as to what he meant, he pointed with his whip to some creature that was running along by the side of his horses, saying, "There is the black dog that hunts the moor."

Terrified at the sight, he lashed his horses in». a gallop in order to escape from the weird "black dog that hunts the moor," which suddenly vanished.I congratulated my lady friends on their good fortune in having been thus made acquainted with a bit of the "Folk-Lore" of Devon. J. F.WILKEY.

FROM THE ARCHIVES...

A very young (and quite thin) looking Jon Downes from 1995, talking about the black dogs of Buckfastleigh to Ruth Langsford...

GUEST BLOGGER NEIL ARNOLD: REMEMBER THE DEVIL DOG?

It is with great pleasure that we welcome Neil Arnold to the CFZ bloggo with this first guest blog. I have known Neil for fifteen years now since he was a schoolboy with ambitions for adventure and I was an earnest young hippie who merely wanted to start a club for people interested in unknown animals. Nothing much has changed over the years. We are just both a tad older...

1963 – the year of the beast. A time when the Surrey ‘puma’ was making its name across the Home Counties, its legend however, obscuring another, more frightful mystery. That of the Hampshire Devil Dog.

Miriam Carroll recalled in ’63 how, whilst driving to Alton, she saw a terrifying black dog clasp a lamb through a barbed-wire fence. The monstrous hound tore at the victim, ripping its head off through the fence, leaving the witness shaken, as she drove to the nearby farm to report the incident. A year later a policeman, whilst chatting to two Irish tourists at 1:15 pm, saw a massive black dog heading their way. Without warning the beast leapt at them, pinning all three of them up against a bus shelter. One of the Irishmen could only react by swiping at the hideous form with his bag, which passed through the creature. The monster dog then vanished, leaving all three men stunned with disbelief.

In 1965, a few stories reached the local papers about the dog and when major building work was carried out at the Crown Hotel, situated in the local high street at Alton, there was some surprise when the bones of a large dog were found.

In 1987, Mr Duggan was driving through Basingstoke with his fiancée Yvonne looking for a place to set up a picnic. They found a clearing in the woods and began to set up their meal, and Mr Duggan decided to urinate in a thicket. Suddenly, whilst beginning to relieve himself he was confronted by a frightening snarling noise and the huge head of a dog, which protruded from the bushes. The couple fled the area, followed by the hellhound.

These incidents may sound like few and far between encounters with a local dog on the loose, but things become far weirder when we trace the origins of the Devil Dog back to the 1780s. Mr Thomas Newton, was a Hampshire socialite against slavery, and funded much to cease the awful treatment dished out against black workers in the West Indies at the time. One such slave was an Ottobah Cugoano who as a child, was captured in Africa. This man was said to own a monstrous dog, the size of a bear. Mr Newton offered £300 for the brute, the money aiding Cugoano’s cause.

It was said that the dog was a cross between a Doberman and a rottweiller, but it was the size of a small pony and didn’t take to any human being except Newton. In 1795 Newton died, but it took local authorities many days to get to his bed-ridden body, for it was guarded by the dog. Eventually, the dog was detained and tied to a tree but escaped when Newton was being buried. The beast was last seen heading off towards the woods.

The Morton family inhabited the Newton house. They were plagued by the beast. Six expensive Arab horses were found so severely injured that they were destroyed, strange howls emanated from the local woods, many animals were found in the shadows ripped to pieces, and large rewards were offered to anyone who could shackle the monster. The Morton family could no longer live in the house. Their farm was a non-existent business for fear of the demon, hen houses were damaged, chickens mutilated, and of 1023 sheep on the land, 887 were killed. The family moved on and the house remained uninhabited and the legend remained dormant, until 1834. A child was attacked and crippled by an enormous dog on the outskirts of Alton. The boy had to have a leg amputated, whilst his other limb was badly chewed. Despite a huge hunt there was no sign of the beast, and despite the dread of local legend, surely the same monster had no been to blame? Evidence mounted, however, that the Hampshire Devil Dog somehow had a life-span of 150 years. Cattle and sheep were often found in appalling state after severe attacks in the early 1900s, local fox hunts were often cancelled in fear of the dog, and the legend was revived in 1963.

Who knows when or where the Devil Dog will strike again.