Demon of the Week 021

Black Shuck, Old Shuck, Old Shock or simply Shuck is the name given to a ghostly black dog that is said to roam the coastline and countryside of East Anglia. Accounts of the animal form part of the folklore of Norfolk, Suffolk, the Cambridgeshirefens and Essex.

The name Shuck may be derived from the Old English word scucca meaning "demon", or possibly from the local dialect word shucky meaning "shaggy" or "hairy".

Black Shuck is one of many ghostly or demonic black dogs that have been recorded across the British Isles. Sometimes recorded as an omen of death, sometimes a more companionable animal, it is classified as a cryptid—a creature or plant whose existence has been suggested but has not been discovered or documented by the scientific community—and there are varying accounts of the animal's supposed appearance. Writing in 1877, Walter Rye stated that Shuck was "the most curious of our local apparitions, as they are no doubt varieties of the same animal."

Its alleged appearance in 1577 at Bungay and Blythburgh is a particularly famous account of the beast, and images of black sinister dogs have since become part of the iconography of the area.