The infamous “Black Dog” is a curiously British cryptid or specter. Known by different names in different parts of the Kingdom, this creature, or these creatures, plural, are likewise given a variety of origins and properties. They are evil, manifestations of the devil. They are sometimes helpful. They are omens of disaster, warnings. They are, or rather IT is, the Hound of Odin, abandoned to roam the British Isles when Christianity forced the old pagan gods out of the land. But could the Black Dog, or “Black Shuck” as it is called in Suffolk, have been a real animal, i.e. a physical, biological creature, instead of a supernatural, spectral one?
Remains found at Leiston Abbey in Suffolk belong to a canine that would have weighed over 200 pounds and stood over seven feet tall (when rearing up, one assumes), and they date to the time period when Black Shuck was said to have been terrorizing the region. The bones unearthed in the grave may be nothing more than the mortal remains of somebody’s pet, albeit a large one, but the reports of the predations of Black Shuck in the 1500s do exist, although they of course have never been verified as accurate. Myself, I tend towards the oversized pet explanation, as I don’t believe Black Shuck could be killed. Legends are like that, and the discovery of the bones of the big dog will only serve to strengthen that legend. Really, would we want it any other way?
