Old Black Dog, he knew my name. He takes the form of a huge black dog, and prowls along dark lanes and lonesome field footpaths, where, although his howling makes the hearer's blood run cold, his footfalls make no sound.
Uhh, where to start? Eyes that shine, burning red, dreams of you all through my head.
Eyes like saucers, glowing. Dogs as big as a calf, all that stuff. See a black dog and it's an omen of death for you or someone in your family, etc. Let's see, there was this church in UK somewhere, there's still a burned scratch on the oak door from some black dog attack or something in the 1600s. I don't pay much attention to that stuff. My bro does, he knows all that dealio.
Ha. I see you like that song "Hey Hey Momma" by Led Zeppelin too.
I think the dog has also been used as a symbol of depression, like in that Nick Drake song, although technically it was "a black-eyed dog he knew my name."
Hound of the Baskervilles?
Ah, yes, Old Black Shuck. A church with a burn on the door? That would be Bungay, Suffolk, church's door. 4 August 1577, Sunday, while the people were at church, there was a huge thunderstorm with explosive claps of thunder. A cleric was thrown from the tower and the church shook. Suddenly in the church a 'frightful prodigy' appeared, clearly seen by the whole congregation: a huge black dog. It ran down the aisle between two people praying who were instantly struck dead. Another man whom it touched shrivelled up 'like a drawn purse' but lived. The machinery of the church clock was twisted and broken, and there were found marks like the scratches of claws on the stones and the metal bound door of the church. On the same day, at Blythburgh, seven miles away, a black dog also ran amid the church, smiting the congregation, killing three and 'blasting' others. The book 'Phenomena' now long out of print, by John Michell & Robert Rickard of Fortean Times fame, contains photos of the scratches, and reproductions of other old broadsheet accounts.
Methinks that the archetype of the black dog probably goes very way back to pre-Christian times and the Celtic peoples lore, but by the time of the Bungay event, the black dog was seen as purely a sign of the devil. Must be some psychological image common to many people.
Italian mystic & now saint, Padre Pio, claimed to see the devil visit him in the form of a huge black dog with smoke issuing from its mouth. The black dog has been seen in England in modern times, too.
technically it was "a black-eyed dog he knew my name."
Drat! Caught!
I think you just gave me nightmares, At Swim Two Birds !
"I see you like that song "Hey Hey Momma" by Led Zeppelin too"
That song is actually titled "Black Dog".
Yes, I was kidding.
I also like that song "Teenage Wasteland" by The Who, and "We Dont Need no Education" by Pink Floyd. and "Everybody Must Get Stoned" by Bob Dylan...
When I was 13, I traveled in Europe with my parents and we went to go see that church. The lady that ran the B&B we stayed at told us the story and I made them take me.
Cool original pamphlet of above story (Thanks At Swim)
Some names in different counties:
Bogey Beast, Lancashire
Bargheust, Yorkshire and the North
Black Shuck, East Anglia
Capelthwaite, Westmorland (Cumbria)
Cu Sith, Highlands (Dark Green)
Gallytrot, Suffolk
Guytrash
Gurt Dog, Somerset
Hairy Jack, Lincolnshire
Mauthe Dog, (Mauthe Doog) Scotland
Old Shock or Shuck (Black Shuck), Suffolk
Padfoot, Yorkshire
Pooka, Ireland
Skriker, Lancashire, Yorkshire
From here
The Pooka is not so much a black dog, it is more of a water spirit which takes the form of a horse, however in other respects it is similar to the black dog (it is black and has glowing eyes & is malevolant). In some places in Ireland he's a hunchback dwarf. The Shriker of Lancashire has some similarities to the Banshee or Ban-Sidhe of Ireland, a wailing demon of bad omen.
The Pooka MacPhellimey (spelling may be wrong), whom you contain yourself, doesn't seem to be a horse, ASTB, does he, though I recall he was not prepared to deny the possibility of his wife's being a kangaroo?
I've heard of the Shuck out in the Fenlands (paging jb) and I always understood the Barghest was the same creature, but I didn't think it was a dog - it's only got one eye, for one thing, hasn't it?
Interesting post.
Pooka or Puca is pretty much a catch-all term that really varies depending on counties in Ireland. In the north, he's a goblin. In the west, more of a shapechanger, often a large goat.
I think the key to this is that when these stories really started circulating, a lot of these places were very remote and travel between them was limited. In this way I think the legend became variant in some places.
The Irish Faeries are masters of shape changing, & so Pooka McPhellimey's vagueness on the nature of his dreadful wife is probably understandable.
There are a) folkloric pookas and b) literary pookas, and the two don't necessarily coincide in character or attributes. Some variations on pooka are phouka, pucca, puca, buca, puck -- and even Puck in A Midsummer's Night's Dream has his roots in the pooka.
The pooka of legend is a shape-changer, mischievous but not primarily malevolent or inimical to human beings. One of its favourite mainfestations is the goat, but it may appear as a youth or young man, a dog, a horse, a stag, or whatever, being quite versatile. Pookas can mislead, they play pranks and have a playful air.
Malevolent shape-changing from man to horse and back again is the purlieu of the kelpy or water-horse, who in legend drowns folk and is definitely hostile to mankind. Literary kelpies are much less so, and in fact are often so tame they bear almost no resemblance to the orignal highly lethal folkloric kelpy.
Black dogs legends are thought by some folklorists to originate in lingering cultural memories of animals sacrificed and buried under the foundations of buildings, bridges, etc. Black dogs appear in specific localities, and seem to be a kind of haunting manifestation, whereas a pooka has no such limitations.
Black dogs are not usually regarded as friendly, often appearing on roads or paths at twilight. The purpose of black dogs popularly seems to have been to scare the bejesus out of late-night solitary travellers, although some of the tales show they could have a warding, or even protective aspect.
...black dogs are large and shaggy, about the size of a calf, with fiery eyes. If anyone speaks to them or strikes at them they have power to blast like the MAUTHIE DOOG, the Black Dog of Peel Castle in the Isle of Man. In ?england they are often the form taken by a human ghost....Another type of black dog is the CHURCH GRIM.....There is a widespread tradtiion that the churchyards were guarded from the Devil and witches by a spirit that usually took the form of a black dog. Those who saw it generally took it as a death warning.-- Kathleen Briggs, An Encycloperia of Fairies, Hobgoblins, Brownies, Bogies, and Other Supernatural Creatures
Aye! First the vampire watermelons will terr'ofy ye, and then yon Black Dog will send the leaches into your nose.
There is a great reference to this legend in 'Jane Eyre', in chapter twelve. Jane refers to the dog as "Gytrash" she describes as a "North-of-England spirit"..."which in the form of a horse, mule or large dog, haunted solitary ways and sometimes came upon belated travelers..." there is no mention of the dog's presaging death, or being in any way menacing or aggressive, altho the scene has a wonderful spooky quality. 'Jane Eyre' was originally published in 1847.
Aye, a host of strange things out there. Sometimes strange within, too.
Jane Eyre is one of my favorite books of all time, Medusa. I have to read it at least once a year.
down into the basement
in my dream I went
into the wreck room
to my astonishment I saw
Anubis lying on the floor
vaster in girth than a carthorse
sleek black all over, head up, ears erect,
he watched as ones I'd knew and loved
moved round him on the gleaming floor
white mice, cats, dogs, birds, all my old pets
were there, and living -- I stared, delighted
as some crouched between his great front paws
=I knew
I knew
Anubis
Old Black Dog he looks at me
Black Dog he makes no sound
He's come for me and my banging heart
To put me in the ground
Speaking of weirdo spooky animal thingies...
I used to have a grey shaggy cat appear running along a wall behind me, just a fleeting glimpse out of the corner of my eye. It never seemed to signify anything in particular, and I haven't seen it for years now.
I've never understood if such things have an independent existence, or if they are purely some kind of projection from ourselves; I do know that they are real enough to see.
I've also had an olfactory event as well; distinctly smelling decomposition outside the house of a friend. I'm a farm kid, and naturally assumed it was a dead little beast of some sort, but I absolutely could find no source for the smell whatsoever; and I'm pretty good at things like that. I go to my friend's door and it turns out that he, having given no warning signs, is intensely suicidal and barely coherent.
Spooked me good. I'm not religious, but the Other World exists, and I try not to fuck with it.
I think animals are closer to it than we are, somewhere between here and there, and when we are close to animals we can feel it, and it can feel us.
Know what ye mean about seeing cats out of the tail of your eye, moneyjane -- it's as if they linger for a few weeks.
And like you, I have no idea if it's my own projection or something actually there, however fleetingly. However, cats seem to do this more often than other animals, in my experience. Maybe their curiosity, who knows?
Plegmund - I'm afraid I don't know anything of the folk-lore of the fens, though I would love to learn some.
And the only thing I know about pookas is that they occassionally come in the 6', long eared variety...
seeing cats out of the tail of your eye
My cat never seemed to be aware of me; it was like I was seeing a quick flash of a coexistant world.
You do a lot of acid, back in the old days? ;)
Seems I'll be going between a brighter-lit area to a darker one, when I glimpse the animal -- many times it's not until several heartbeats afterward that I think, But you're dead.
While they're happening these glimpsess seem ordinary. They are surprising more in retrospect than at the time of their occurrence.
A couple such experiences date from my childhood.
mj - I had the same experience with one, special cat.
And, Doris, it wasn't due to acid. It might have been wishful thinking, but it wasn't because of drugs. And, it was just one cat out of all those that I've owned. I'm not a romantic, nor am I a hippie (and I'm convinced that moneyjane is neither of those, as well.)
Doris
Oh...a tad...
You know what's really weird? I didn't know the cat. And path you are on it; I actually have a strong urge to send all hippies into outer space. Which is what happens when a couple of them pretend to raise you.
Heh...but I am romantic - pay my damn bills romantic.
By the way, I just got an incredible piece of hate email...anybody curious to see it? It is extra hagtastic. I think I'll post in on my site.
/derail
Last couple of days, I've been seeing people that turn out to be birds. A flash of movement that my mind sees as a human sillouette, I turn my head and it's a bird.
Just odd.
birds are like that, Nickdanger.
Maybe they were birds who had briefly turned into people. Birds can do that.
Birds...(looks around nervously at the playground equipment) can do a *lot* of things.
Bird...things. Shhhhhhh...
mj - hadn't read your blog for a while, and I think now you've gotten your feet under you (or, if that's incomprehensible, it's become really great.) I've bookmarked it, and urge others here to do so. Great stuff!
We're in Navaho country now, maybe those birds are skinwalkers!
Scary stuff.
Empire of Dreams
On the front page of my dreambook
It's always evening
In an occupiied country.
Hour before the curfew
A small provincial city.
The houses all dark.
The store-fronts gutted.
I am on a street corner
Where I shouldn't be.
Alone and coatless
I have gone out to look
For a black dog who answers to my whistle.
I have a kind of halloween mask
Which I am afraid to put on.
The poem above is by Charles Simac.
*That* was great, bees!! I'll have to go look for more of his stuff.
Empire of Dreams describes my essential persona; me when most alive.
-- Kathleen Briggs, An Encycloperia of Fairies, Hobgoblins, Brownies, Bogies, and Other Supernatural Creatures