Hounds of Hell
Black dogs in a plethora of situations feature prominently
in folklore. Indeed, when Theo Brown, the Devonshire folklorist, set out
some years ago to write a book on the subject of black dogs, she found
herself overwhelmed by the mass of information available in the literature,
and died before she could accomplish her ambition.
I am prompted by a fascinating article in The
Countryman for February which describes strange happenings, not this
time in Devonshire but on the borders or Norfolk and Suffolk. The records
of the church of St Mary in Bungay claim that on Sunday 4 August 1577
a violent thunderstorm shook the church in question, accompanied by a
fearful black dog which entered the nave unseen by the assembled parishioners.
Two persons who were touched by the animal were promptly killed and a
third shrivelled "like a drawn purse." Even stranger, on the very same
day, seven miles away in the church at Blythburgh, three parishioners
were killed and others "blasted" by a black dog which entered the building,
an event duly recorded in the church documents.
It is claimed also that in the neighbourhood of
Dunstable there was a local belief that ghostly black hounds of the size
of retrievers haunted fields at night and were in the habit of killing
anyone who dared to shout at them. Some of these were said to be headless.
The legends of black hounds in the West Country
are less savage, but there are many of them, widely distributed. A general
superstition relates that places where three tracks meet are guarded by
black dogs.
Sir Robert Chichester of Martinhoe is said to traverse
the parish in the form of a black dog sitting in a flaming car drawn by
four elephants, which seems unnecessarily extravagant. A youngster living
in a house between Postbridge and Widecombe that was claimed to be haunted,
lamented that he was terrified by a pack of black hounds running loose
in the courtyard, although no one else could perceive them. There are
black dogs reported from Torrington, and haunting the road between Moretonhampstead
and Postbridge. The celebrated hound of the Baskervilles, described by
Arthur Conan Doyle, was based upon a similar report current in the neighbourhood
of Princetown.
Perhaps the best-known black dog legend is attached
to the notorious Lady Mary (or perhaps Frances) Howard of Tavistock (1596-1671),who
lived at Fitzford. She was a lady-in-waiting to Henrietta Maria, had four
husbands, and was reputedly vastly rich and vicious.
One version of the story maintains that Lady Howard
was obliged to atone for her misdeeds by running nightly from Fitzford
to Okehampton in the shape of a black hound, plucking each time a blade
of grass from the castle mound and returning with it. She is accompanied
by a headless coachman driving a coach made of bones. An alternative story
relates that the lady drives the coach and is preceded by a black hound
with a single eye in the middle of its forehead.
If you have ever had to walk that particular road
after dark on a stormy winter's night, you will appreciate that the setting
is highly appropriate and not to be faced by the timid traveller.
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Ever
since humans started to make voyages across the oceans, sailors have had
the reputation of a fondness for alcoholic. Perhaps this stemmed from
an idea that, on the broad watery wastes, collisions were unlikely, so
that a clear head was not a necessity, as it must be in transport over
land. That there are snags in the notion has been suggested every now
and then when a large transport vessel involved in an accident has revealed
that crew members were incapacitated by liquor or its consequent somnolence.