Mapping the Grim

This was part of the original intent of the Public Archaeology project (for PA2015) and for me, because data is poetry and maps are fine prose. Due to the nature of my working life; the fact that I'm a bit of a butterfly/battering ram when it comes to how I approach...

Lost in a Landscape: Wayland Wood

There is a darkness in woodland, hiding in the shade of the green canopy, something that retracts in the sunlight in the corner of your vision, beyond the growing and shrinking of the shadows, the greening, then yellowing, then bareness, with each revolution of the...

Black Dog tales: The Hound of St Austell

A guest post from Andrew Macdonald of Waveney Archaeology. Samuel Drew (1765-1833) was a self-taught man of letters; his special interest was metaphysics, which is perhaps why he is little known now. He was apprenticed to a shoemaker and gave the following account of...

Black dog tales: From folklore to fiction, Cromer and the landscapes of the Baskervilles

'There is a rumour that...' is a phrase that appears a lot in relation to the genesis of the spectral hound Conan Doyle's The Hound of the Baskervilles and the Black dog or Black Shuck loitering within. A variety of locations lay some claim to the hound, not least...

The Halvergate Shuck

Guest post from Nigel Thorpe There's nothing quite as strange and good as a tale from the horses mouth, someone you know who has encountered, done, or experienced something. Nigel bumped into Shuck at the very start of the millennium. This story serves to show what a...

The Discovery of the Lancashire Witches 1612

Guest post from Tim Hardy. Tim is a graphic designer, illustrator and history boy, he is also resident of the Pendle area. Follows a tale of Black dog as familiar, witches and the trial.   Living in the Borough of Pendle, it’s not easy to escape the area’s...

Folklore and geo-mythology

Lost in a Landscape: Wayland Wood

Lost in a Landscape: Wayland Wood

There is a darkness in woodland, hiding in the shade of the green canopy, something that retracts in the sunlight in the corner of your vision, beyond the growing and shrinking of the shadows, the greening, then yellowing, then bareness, with each revolution of the...

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Black Dog Tales: Toby Gill

Black Dog Tales: Toby Gill

A fresh guest tale from Nicola Miller of The Millers Tale. A curious story woven by ghosts across the Shucklands of Blythburgh. Suffolk is home to many a curious tale, from the mysterious green children of Woolpit to a mansion which disappears and re-appears in the...

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Black Dogs: The Wisht Hunt of Dartmoor

Black Dogs: The Wisht Hunt of Dartmoor

A guest post from Stephen on the nature of the Wild Hunts of Dartmoor. 'The spectre pack which hunts over Dartmoor is called the “wish hounds” and the black “master” who follows the chase is no doubt the same who has left his mark on Wistman’s Wood' – The Quarterly...

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The black dog of Peterloo

The black dog of Peterloo

Guest post from Rosie Garland. A Manchester Encounter, or, The Black Dog of Peterloo From an unpublished and anonymous letter now in the collection of the Portico Library, Manchester. Typography dates it to the first quarter of the nineteenth century. Spelling and...

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Black Dog tales: The Hound of St Austell

Black Dog tales: The Hound of St Austell

A guest post from Andrew Macdonald of Waveney Archaeology. Samuel Drew (1765-1833) was a self-taught man of letters; his special interest was metaphysics, which is perhaps why he is little known now. He was apprenticed to a shoemaker and gave the following account of...

read more