| SHUCKLAND Introduction Alphabetical List of Locations | |
| Location: | Littleport, CAMBRIDGESHIRE |
| Legend: | "W. H. Barrett heard in his youth the story of Shuck, a big black dog whose master was drowned one foggy night when his horse ran down the river bank and plunged into the river [Great Ouse] half-way between Littleport and Brandon creek. Shuck was never seen again...on pitch-black nights wayfarers could hear him padding along the road [the A10], whining and howling for his dead master. Some even declared that they had felt the dog's hot breath against their legs, while people living in the houses alongside the road dreaded the dark nights when Shuck's howls kept them awake as he roamed up and down the river bank." |
| Source: | Enid Porter: 'Cambridgeshire Customs & Folklore' (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1969), p. 53-4. |
| Place Name: | Littleport - OE 'small town' |
| Other: | See encounter below. |
| Location: | Littleport |
| Encounter: | "In 1906, however, his [Shuck's] existence was abruptly ended. A well-known Littleport resident, motoring home one foggy Autumn evening, crashed into some object on the [A10] road and stalled his engine. He landed up off the road and with his front wheel only a few feet from the river at the very spot where Shuck's master had been drowned a hundred years before. The animal was never heard again, so this accident must, the local folk declared, have been the first case of a ghost dog being run over and killed by a motor car." |
| Source: | As above. |