SHUCKLAND

SHUCKLAND

RELATED CREATURES

Below are a few cases that I've recorded where the creature in question isn't a dog, but it bears some characteristics similar to those of the standard legendary 'phantom hounds'.

Location:	Hethersett, NORFOLK

Encounter:	"The Faines. These were animals the size of calves with saucer eyes which frequented Hethersett. One of them kept on the Mill Road [runs between New Road and Great Melton Road] and the other, which my informant met 25 years ago, the Gravel Pit lane [an old track, now a footpath, that heads north from Cedar Lane towards the former pit.] He was coming home late one night when he met it and felt a little gust of wind, which took him off his feet, but he lit behind it on his feet. He saw it going away shedding a light right and left like a bicycle lamp. The mother had seen it lots of times. When she was walking with her husband she used to 'scringe' to him to give it room to pass."

Source:	Walter Rye: 'Recreations of a Norfolk Antiquary' (1920), p.28.

Location:	Norwich, NORFOLK

Legend:	"...another story is told by persons still living of the Gildencroft bogey, with the orthodox 'tay-sarcer' [tea-saucer] eyes, which was wont to rush out and chase lonely wayfarers." (1) "...this type [Barguest, a shape-shifting dog] was so well-known in connection with...Norwich..." (2)

Sources:	(1) James Hooper: Query 166, in 'Norfolk & Norwich Notes & Queries', 26/11/1896, p. 416. (2) Theo Brown: The Black Dog', in Folklore' Vol.69 (1958), p. 183.

Comments:	Gildencroft was a large area of the city to the west and south of St. Augustine's church. All that remains today is a recreation ground.

Location:	Melton, SUFFOLK

Encounter:	"County Folk-Lore (Vol. 1) includes some personally collected material, among it some letters written to a Mr. Redstone. One records an example of a very palpable shock: 'In Melton stands the 'Horse & Groom' inn - in the days of toll-bar gates (30 years ago) occupied by one Master Fisher. It was a dark night when Goodman Kemp of Woodbridge entered the inn in a hurried frightened manner, and asked for the loan of a gun to shoot a 'Shock', which hung upon the toll-gate bars [TM28445100, at the junction of Yarmouth Road and St. Audry's Lane.] It was a 'thing' with a donkey's head and a smooth velvet hide. Kemp, somewhat emboldened by the support of companions, sought to grab the creature and take it to the inn to examine it. As he seized it, it turned suddenly round, snapped at Kemp's hand and vanished. Kemp bore the mark of the Shock's bite upon his thumb to his dying day.'" [This story was told to Mr. Redstone by Mr. Fisher, then aged 70, son of Fisher the innkeeper.]

Source:	Katherine M. Briggs: 'Dictionary of Fairies' (Penguin, 1977), p. 362, quoting from Lady E. Gurdon: 'County Folk-Lore: Suffolk' (Folk-Lore Society Vol. 1, 1893), p. 91-2.

Location:	Rattlesden, SUFFOLK

Encounter:	There is a tradition that a former inhabitant of Clopton Green is said to have seen a 'Thing' with two saucer eyes on the Woolpit road, the night before he died. It wouldn't move out of his way, and instead grew bigger and said: "I shall want you within a week."

Source:	'East Anglian Miscellany', Note 105 (1901.)