1
00:00:06,040 --> 00:00:09,640
I can't remember what time of year
it was, but judging by the scenery

2
00:00:09,759 --> 00:00:13,279
and what I was doing, it
must have been the end of summer or

3
00:00:13,320 --> 00:00:18,000
the cusp of autumn. I can
be confident that I was on one of

4
00:00:18,039 --> 00:00:23,760
the longer school holidays children are given, much to the dismay of parents everywhere.

5
00:00:24,199 --> 00:00:28,000
Because my girlfriend of the time had
been sent to stay with her nan

6
00:00:28,199 --> 00:00:33,359
in a small market town almost twenty
miles away from where we lived, her

7
00:00:33,399 --> 00:00:39,000
mom and dad diligently limited our time
together. We were young teenagers, full

8
00:00:39,039 --> 00:00:43,520
of eagerness to act on our own
natural drives, and they had good reason.

9
00:00:44,719 --> 00:00:48,920
When I received a written message from
my girlfriend cell phones were not a

10
00:00:48,960 --> 00:00:53,159
thing yet, letting me know that
she was not under the watchful eye of

11
00:00:53,159 --> 00:00:58,000
her parents. A twenty mile bike
ride didn't seem like much of a barrier

12
00:00:58,159 --> 00:01:03,880
to some alone time children had more
freedom back then, I had more than

13
00:01:03,920 --> 00:01:07,560
most. Being the fifth of six
children, My parents had most likely had

14
00:01:07,640 --> 00:01:11,239
enough of parenting by the time it
came to me and my little sister.

15
00:01:12,400 --> 00:01:17,799
My independent nature and my ability to
stay out of trouble meant the arrangement was

16
00:01:17,840 --> 00:01:23,040
agreeable for everyone concerned. So with
a backpack containing a sleeping bag and a

17
00:01:23,159 --> 00:01:30,159
change of clothes. I headed off
to visit my girlfriend. England is a

18
00:01:30,200 --> 00:01:36,439
relatively small place, lined with narrow
lanes and dotted over with farmhouses and small

19
00:01:36,519 --> 00:01:40,519
villages. There's always a place to
stop and have a bite to eat.

20
00:01:41,200 --> 00:01:45,519
There isn't much there to pose a
danger to a bicyclist or a hiker,

21
00:01:45,719 --> 00:01:49,400
except perhaps stinging nettle that'll give you
an itchy rash for an hour or so.

22
00:01:51,239 --> 00:01:55,040
But otherwise I didn't feel as though
I had anything to worry about as

23
00:01:55,079 --> 00:02:00,799
I made my way cross country to
the village of Bungy. Twenty miles seemed

24
00:02:00,840 --> 00:02:04,959
to pass quickly as I rode through
the landscape that had changed very little since

25
00:02:05,040 --> 00:02:08,719
the days when the Romans ruled to
Britain, and soon I found myself on

26
00:02:08,759 --> 00:02:14,400
a country road too narrow for two
cars to pass, and it was separated

27
00:02:14,439 --> 00:02:20,639
from a farmer's fence by an overgrown
grass verge enveloped in cow parsley, blunt

28
00:02:20,680 --> 00:02:27,599
leafed dock and the chalky stems of
yellow fennel. Norfolk is exceptionally flat,

29
00:02:27,680 --> 00:02:30,400
and so I was given an unhindered
view of the sunset from the moment it

30
00:02:30,439 --> 00:02:36,759
touched the horizon until it slipt quietly
behind it. And to my right the

31
00:02:36,800 --> 00:02:42,199
world was all shadows and silhouettes outlined
against the sun, and to my left

32
00:02:42,280 --> 00:02:49,039
the fields were reflecting the amber rays
and casting a sinister pall over the countryside.

33
00:02:49,680 --> 00:02:53,280
While I was wishing I had a
camera, I slowed down to enjoy

34
00:02:53,319 --> 00:02:58,960
the sight, and that's when I
became aware of a metallic sound. I

35
00:02:59,000 --> 00:03:02,080
think I had been here hearing it
for a while but had subconsciously put it

36
00:03:02,159 --> 00:03:07,240
down to something caught in the spokes
of my bike. Now, as I

37
00:03:07,319 --> 00:03:12,120
slowed, the soft, metallic clanking
had not changed. I looked back over

38
00:03:12,159 --> 00:03:15,919
the flat landscape, but I couldn't
find anything natural or otherwise that could have

39
00:03:16,000 --> 00:03:23,159
been making that sound. Unfortunately,
I had recently read Algernon Blackwood's The Wind

40
00:03:23,159 --> 00:03:27,800
to Go, and though it held
very little resemblance to what we are told

41
00:03:27,840 --> 00:03:30,520
today that what a windygo looks like, it is one of the few books

42
00:03:30,520 --> 00:03:36,840
I've read that truly scared me.
That combined with my natural fear of dark

43
00:03:36,919 --> 00:03:39,919
and time of day, and my
location far from any man made light,

44
00:03:40,159 --> 00:03:46,639
sent fear sweeping over me in the
form of panic with a mental image of

45
00:03:46,680 --> 00:03:50,919
the wind to go, rising up
from behind the overgrown fence line and sprinting

46
00:03:50,960 --> 00:03:55,639
at me with ungodly speed. I
pushed off with steely determination to reach the

47
00:03:55,639 --> 00:04:02,319
welllit safety of my girlfriend's nan home. As I raced along in the fading

48
00:04:02,400 --> 00:04:06,520
light, the metallic sound stayed with
me, and in a very short period

49
00:04:06,919 --> 00:04:13,400
it changed from clanking to that of
a dog's claws on the pavement. I

50
00:04:13,439 --> 00:04:15,560
was hoping that was the case,
and I looked back, half expecting to

51
00:04:15,600 --> 00:04:20,040
see a dog like my German shepherd
at home, ambling down the road behind

52
00:04:20,079 --> 00:04:26,000
me, but again there was nothing
in sight. I'm deaf in one ear,

53
00:04:26,480 --> 00:04:30,680
and as such I'm used to being
misled by sound. Identifying it or

54
00:04:30,800 --> 00:04:35,639
placing its distance and direction are much
more difficult with only one good ear.

55
00:04:36,560 --> 00:04:42,199
But still this was a familiar noise. Whether I was able to identify the

56
00:04:42,279 --> 00:04:46,879
source or not. The absence of
sunlight was doing nothing to counteract the chill

57
00:04:46,959 --> 00:04:50,800
that had swept over me, but
the knowledge that it was the sound I

58
00:04:50,920 --> 00:04:57,959
knew helped to provide some calm.
As if to punish me for relaxing,

59
00:04:58,120 --> 00:05:01,560
the sound of something big came from
the long grass and tall plants, on

60
00:05:01,680 --> 00:05:08,600
the verge. The dry sound of
moving grass and folding stems softened the clank

61
00:05:08,680 --> 00:05:13,319
of a short chain being dragged over
the hidden fence. I whipped my head

62
00:05:13,360 --> 00:05:15,600
around, expecting to see an animal
that I thought had come out of the

63
00:05:15,639 --> 00:05:21,279
field and should have been standing on
the verge behind me, But nothing was

64
00:05:21,319 --> 00:05:27,240
there. An electric prickle slid up
my back and raised the hair off my

65
00:05:27,399 --> 00:05:30,720
neck. The road was empty,
but I saw the silhouette of a pair

66
00:05:30,720 --> 00:05:35,319
of long, narrow dog ears keeping
pace with me in the field. The

67
00:05:35,399 --> 00:05:40,199
animal's head wasn't bobbing, so I
knew it didn't have to try to keep

68
00:05:40,319 --> 00:05:44,399
up with me. I could see
the top of its head in the breaks

69
00:05:44,439 --> 00:05:47,360
of the tall grass, and it
seemed to know I was looking at it,

70
00:05:47,399 --> 00:05:54,399
because it folded its ears and ducked
its head lower. That chilled prickle

71
00:05:54,600 --> 00:05:58,959
made a home in the center of
my chest, and it tightened my lungs

72
00:05:58,959 --> 00:06:02,079
and made the air hit cold in
the back of my throat. My heart

73
00:06:02,160 --> 00:06:05,879
started thumping against my rib cage as
if it wanted to break out of its

74
00:06:06,000 --> 00:06:13,079
organic prison, and it pushed icy
blood around my body, and instinctively I

75
00:06:13,120 --> 00:06:18,079
knew the situation was unnatural. My
legs were already pumping as hard as my

76
00:06:18,279 --> 00:06:24,680
heart while my head swiveled between the
narrow road ahead and the animal moving along

77
00:06:24,720 --> 00:06:29,199
the fence. If I'd seen the
thing's head level with the tops of the

78
00:06:29,279 --> 00:06:33,199
grass, it had to be five
feet tall. Now that I knew what

79
00:06:33,319 --> 00:06:38,000
I was looking at and where it
was, I could see its thick,

80
00:06:38,079 --> 00:06:44,920
heavy muzzle and long black body between
the thinner patches of the grass. Somehow

81
00:06:45,240 --> 00:06:49,120
I found more speed, but that
didn't help. It increased its gait to

82
00:06:49,199 --> 00:06:54,720
try it and keep pace with me. I was pelting along faster than I'd

83
00:06:54,720 --> 00:06:59,279
ever bite before or since, and
all this dog had to do to keep

84
00:06:59,360 --> 00:07:03,360
up was trot. Fear was pushing
me beyond my limits, and the voice

85
00:07:03,399 --> 00:07:09,360
of reason was a distant whisper in
my mind between telling me it was just

86
00:07:09,399 --> 00:07:14,439
a horse or a deer. But
I knew in reality it was an unnatural

87
00:07:14,480 --> 00:07:18,399
creature, and I had no chance
of escaping. An animal that size could

88
00:07:18,480 --> 00:07:21,240
leap over the fence and catch me
if it wanted to, and there was

89
00:07:21,279 --> 00:07:26,759
nothing I could do to stop that. I could hear the animal's paws padding

90
00:07:26,800 --> 00:07:30,519
through the dirt, and the rhythmic
jangling of a chain as it lazily started

91
00:07:30,560 --> 00:07:35,800
to close the gap between us.
On the very few occasions when I had

92
00:07:35,839 --> 00:07:41,240
been forced to see control of my
body to the fight or flight response,

93
00:07:41,759 --> 00:07:46,040
I had been amazed at the number
of tiny details that autopilot is able to

94
00:07:46,040 --> 00:07:50,279
pick up on in factor into a
snap decision. And even now I can

95
00:07:50,360 --> 00:07:55,879
clearly picture the vista ahead of me
as I approached the small hump back bridge

96
00:07:55,920 --> 00:08:01,319
spanning a narrow stream with three foot
deep banks flanking it, And although I

97
00:08:01,360 --> 00:08:05,800
couldn't see the road immediately beyond the
hump of the bridge, I could see

98
00:08:05,839 --> 00:08:11,560
the hedge rows bordering the generous gardens
of scatterings of cottages built along the winding

99
00:08:11,680 --> 00:08:16,800
road. There was a slight downward
gradient that probably passes as a hill around

100
00:08:16,800 --> 00:08:20,279
here, and it allowed me to
see the roof of a car weaving its

101
00:08:20,279 --> 00:08:26,000
way toward the bridge at a speed. The homes in sight were all on

102
00:08:26,079 --> 00:08:28,879
the right side, with open fields
on the left, and that meant the

103
00:08:28,879 --> 00:08:33,279
dog wouldn't have any overgrown grass to
stay behind after it crossed the stream,

104
00:08:35,080 --> 00:08:39,000
and thinking that the dog would choose
to pounce on me after clearing the end

105
00:08:39,000 --> 00:08:43,200
of the bridge, I dug deep
and pushed out enough effort to increase my

106
00:08:43,399 --> 00:08:48,840
speed of fraction. As I crested
the humpback bridge. As my tires left

107
00:08:48,840 --> 00:08:54,000
the tarmac where it was gouged by
unwary drivers who had bottomed out, I

108
00:08:54,039 --> 00:08:58,279
saw that the road took a sharp
turn to the left a little beyond the

109
00:08:58,320 --> 00:09:03,919
foot of the bridge. I cleared
most of it and landed, already leaning

110
00:09:03,960 --> 00:09:07,519
hard to the right to make the
turn and happy that it would take me

111
00:09:07,600 --> 00:09:11,600
further away from the dog. But
as I rounded the corner, I saw

112
00:09:11,639 --> 00:09:16,720
a large, unreasonably spiky piece of
farm equipment sitting by a large gate that

113
00:09:16,840 --> 00:09:22,840
opened out onto the fields. Still
in mid turn, I remembered there was

114
00:09:22,879 --> 00:09:26,840
also a car coming fast that,
in all probability hadn't seen me coming over

115
00:09:26,879 --> 00:09:31,240
the hump of the bridge, and
if I stayed on the road, I

116
00:09:31,279 --> 00:09:33,919
would be hit by the car,
And if I kept pulling left to get

117
00:09:33,960 --> 00:09:39,960
off the road, I'd be secured
on the blue crescent shaped steel spikes belonging

118
00:09:39,039 --> 00:09:43,480
to the tractor trailer. And to
the right, I saw a well kept

119
00:09:43,559 --> 00:09:50,720
privet hedge belonging to the first cottage
along this road. Although I hadn't glanced

120
00:09:50,759 --> 00:09:54,360
back since I had noticed the deep
gouges in the tarmac at the crest of

121
00:09:54,399 --> 00:09:58,080
the bridge. I imagined the large
dog running alongside me, just on the

122
00:09:58,120 --> 00:10:03,039
other side of the mant incured hedge. I had nothing to do with the

123
00:10:03,159 --> 00:10:07,440
choice, mate, It was all
instinct, and I jerked the handlebars to

124
00:10:07,480 --> 00:10:11,840
the left and tensed my arms and
shoulders as a wall of green hiding the

125
00:10:11,879 --> 00:10:16,600
field's boundary hurtled toward me. Before
I hit anything, the front wheel snapped

126
00:10:16,600 --> 00:10:22,799
around beyond ninety degrees and I was
catapulted off the saddle. In the air,

127
00:10:22,000 --> 00:10:26,960
I made contact with something hard enough
to bounce off and tumble along the

128
00:10:26,080 --> 00:10:33,039
verge before coming to rest uncomfortably on
my overstuffed pack. I sat up just

129
00:10:33,120 --> 00:10:37,120
in time to see the car going
by and breaking hard for the bridge.

130
00:10:37,759 --> 00:10:41,840
And given all the details I can
recall from that moment, it vexes me

131
00:10:41,960 --> 00:10:46,879
to know in that I cannot recall
the color of that car. The big

132
00:10:48,000 --> 00:10:52,720
dark face opposite me that had pushed
itself through the hedge across the narrow road,

133
00:10:52,799 --> 00:10:58,159
however, will stay with me forever. With my legs splayed out in

134
00:10:58,200 --> 00:11:03,399
front of me, I felt the
stiff stems of the tall grass between my

135
00:11:03,519 --> 00:11:07,159
fingers as I propped myself upright.
I could have reached out and grabbed the

136
00:11:07,159 --> 00:11:11,799
painted blue spikes of the trailer beside
me if I wanted to use it to

137
00:11:11,840 --> 00:11:16,600
haul myself off the ground, But
I was locked in place by the gaze

138
00:11:16,639 --> 00:11:24,200
of an unnaturally large dog. Yellow
eyes glimmered at me with their own luminescence

139
00:11:24,399 --> 00:11:28,759
in the half light, and a
heavy muzzle that wouldn't look out of place

140
00:11:28,840 --> 00:11:35,039
on a mastiff barely concealed the bulge
of hidden fangs atop its large, square

141
00:11:35,080 --> 00:11:39,919
head. Two long, narrow ears
were trained on me along with its unblinking

142
00:11:41,080 --> 00:11:46,279
gaze. I could see one leg
planted firmly under its massive body, and

143
00:11:46,360 --> 00:11:52,480
I'm glad its paws were lost in
the slightly overgrown edges of the cottage's lawn,

144
00:11:52,080 --> 00:11:56,600
because I think even a hint of
tooth or claws would have pushed me

145
00:11:56,720 --> 00:12:01,360
to the breaking point. A heavy
coal black chain hung beside the one leg

146
00:12:01,440 --> 00:12:05,799
that I could see, but I
couldn't honestly say I saw much more of

147
00:12:05,840 --> 00:12:11,720
the animal. Hot tears welled up
in my eyes as the bomps and bruises

148
00:12:11,759 --> 00:12:15,279
I got from the tumble began to
ache and I thought it was the end

149
00:12:15,320 --> 00:12:20,320
of me. At that moment,
the giant dog, not ten meters away

150
00:12:20,320 --> 00:12:24,799
from me started to shrink. As
if my encounter didn't sound unbelievable already,

151
00:12:26,240 --> 00:12:31,480
I promise you, the dog stood
statue still and began to shrink. I

152
00:12:31,519 --> 00:12:35,440
know it doesn't make much sense to
say this, but the shrinking didn't look

153
00:12:35,559 --> 00:12:41,399
real. It looked like a bad
special effect from a cheap TV show.

154
00:12:41,720 --> 00:12:46,279
As it got smaller, a lot
didn't move at all. It wasn't getting

155
00:12:46,360 --> 00:12:52,200
further away. It shrank, and
somehow it became wrong. I know that

156
00:12:52,279 --> 00:12:56,440
it is an incredibly poor descriptive,
but the comparison to low budget TV show

157
00:12:56,480 --> 00:13:01,639
effects is the best I can muster
for what I saw that evening. In

158
00:13:01,759 --> 00:13:07,000
a scant few seconds, I couldn't
see the dog anymore. An instinct relinquished

159
00:13:07,039 --> 00:13:11,559
control of my body, and I
sat there for a while, trying to

160
00:13:11,600 --> 00:13:16,200
normalize my breathing and stopped trembling.
And all too soon the growing darkness encouraged

161
00:13:16,200 --> 00:13:22,639
me to make haste to where my
girlfriend was staying. I chose not to

162
00:13:22,679 --> 00:13:26,360
tell her what had happened. I
told her that I had fallen off my

163
00:13:26,440 --> 00:13:28,759
bike and there was no need to
worry. She was used to seeing me

164
00:13:28,879 --> 00:13:35,279
looking weather worn and road weary.
After a mug of tea and a generous

165
00:13:35,320 --> 00:13:39,799
slice of cay, I all but
forgot about the dog and concentrated on enjoying

166
00:13:39,840 --> 00:13:45,679
my girlfriend's company, And all too
soon my girlfriend's nan politely reminded me that

167
00:13:45,799 --> 00:13:48,080
it was getting too late for a
young lady to have a male visitor.

168
00:13:48,919 --> 00:13:56,720
Unfortunately, my return trip was mundane. Not much time passed before I put

169
00:13:56,799 --> 00:14:01,799
my encounter down to my fear of
the dark feet my imagination. I decided

170
00:14:03,039 --> 00:14:07,159
it was a deer that had startled
me. Maybe something did stick its head

171
00:14:07,200 --> 00:14:11,759
through the hedge and stare at me. But a lot of people keep goats.

172
00:14:11,679 --> 00:14:16,039
They're great at slipping out of their
pens or off their chains. But

173
00:14:16,080 --> 00:14:20,120
it wasn't until the Internet took off
many years later that I came across the

174
00:14:20,200 --> 00:14:24,879
story of the Black Shuck, and
I began to entertain the idea that I

175
00:14:24,919 --> 00:14:31,480
could have seen a supernatural hound.
The United Kingdom has plenty of mythological creatures

176
00:14:31,519 --> 00:14:37,200
to call upon, a wealth of
homegrown legends mixed with those brought to our

177
00:14:37,279 --> 00:14:41,759
tiny island by raiders and conquerors over
the millennia. We are small, but

178
00:14:41,840 --> 00:14:48,360
we're not densely populated. Even so
what we refer to as a vast open

179
00:14:48,480 --> 00:14:54,159
space might only constitute a large backyard
in other countries. That's why I raise

180
00:14:54,200 --> 00:15:00,240
an eyebrow whenever someone insists the UK
has its own large, cryptid running about.

181
00:15:00,679 --> 00:15:03,320
What I can start to believe is
the many black dog stories that have

182
00:15:03,440 --> 00:15:09,000
been around since time immemorial and the
big cat sightings that have been common since

183
00:15:09,039 --> 00:15:16,240
the nineteen seventies. Black dog stories
have been a mainstay of legends and myths

184
00:15:16,279 --> 00:15:20,919
from Scotland to Wales and across the
Irish Sea to Ireland. The town of

185
00:15:20,960 --> 00:15:26,600
Burnby has its own tale of a
black dog called the Black Shuck, and

186
00:15:26,679 --> 00:15:31,600
it stretches back to the fourth of
August fifteen seventy seven, when darkness,

187
00:15:31,799 --> 00:15:37,559
rain, hail, and lightning as
was never seen. The light sent the

188
00:15:37,600 --> 00:15:43,159
townspeople to the church to pray for
a reprieve from the tempest. Lightning struck

189
00:15:43,200 --> 00:15:48,200
the church and a black dog broke
down the door with a bestial hatred and

190
00:15:48,240 --> 00:15:52,399
a disregard for God. All down
the church in the midst of fire,

191
00:15:52,600 --> 00:15:58,759
the hellish monster flew and passing onward
to the choir he many people slew.

192
00:16:00,240 --> 00:16:03,360
After killing two people, the dog
of Death, burning with the wrathful head

193
00:16:03,440 --> 00:16:10,000
of hell fire, vanished. It
then apparently traveled twelve miles to the Holy

194
00:16:10,120 --> 00:16:15,039
Trinity Church in Blibra, where it
killed more of the faithful. Saint Mary's

195
00:16:15,120 --> 00:16:19,600
Church has a tower damaged by lightning
that now sports an iron weather vane with

196
00:16:19,639 --> 00:16:26,200
a black dog running on a lightning
bolt. The Holy Trinity Church at Blibra

197
00:16:26,440 --> 00:16:30,240
has burn marks on its ancient doors
that were apparently left behind by the baleful

198
00:16:30,360 --> 00:16:36,080
heat of the black Shuck's claws.
Thanks to a little research, I have

199
00:16:36,159 --> 00:16:41,200
discovered many people all over Suffolk and
Norfolk and the Black Shucks stories to tell

200
00:16:41,039 --> 00:16:45,559
a good handful of them recount hearing
a dog padding along the road close by

201
00:16:45,600 --> 00:16:51,080
and dragging a chain, but there
is no dog to be seen. Those

202
00:16:51,120 --> 00:16:56,120
that do see something report sizes from
a normal dog to something like a small

203
00:16:56,159 --> 00:17:00,639
pony, and a couple of people
even say they watched the dog shrink and

204
00:17:00,679 --> 00:17:06,640
then vanish. The legend of the
black Shuck claims that if you see the

205
00:17:06,720 --> 00:17:10,319
dog, you will die within a
year. Well, I'm fine, and

206
00:17:10,400 --> 00:17:15,079
so is everyone else that reported seeing
the black shuck. But just like me,

207
00:17:15,279 --> 00:17:18,279
many of those people had a brush
with death. If I hadn't been

208
00:17:18,319 --> 00:17:22,119
peddling hard to get away from the
dog following me, I would have come

209
00:17:22,240 --> 00:17:26,279
over the humpback bridge without seeing that
car coming, and I would have been

210
00:17:26,359 --> 00:17:30,759
hit by it or veered off the
road straight into the spiky tractor trailer.

211
00:17:32,720 --> 00:17:37,400
Perhaps then the black shuck is there
to protect the lonely wanderer on East Anglias

212
00:17:37,640 --> 00:17:42,519
back roads and in its woods.
If not, then it is a sinister

213
00:17:42,680 --> 00:17:48,440
harbinger of pending disaster, waiting for
our soul's release from its mortal vessel.

214
00:17:48,240 --> 00:17:53,640
Still an escort, but a shepherd
of a very different kind. It has

215
00:17:53,680 --> 00:17:59,559
a chain around its neck, so
that makes me think this dog is domesticated.

216
00:18:00,319 --> 00:18:03,200
The dogs are called to man's best
friends for countless very good reasons,

217
00:18:03,839 --> 00:18:08,079
and I can't help but wonder about
that chain. Though. If the black

218
00:18:08,119 --> 00:18:15,440
shuck is a domesticated animal, what
sort of creature does a giant black dog call master