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ME: Red Wheel/Weiser, 2004.
CHAPTER 6
Monsters and Weird
Creatures
Humans are fascinated by beasts that represent their hidden fears of death
and evil. This is probably the reason why more is written about frightening
mythical and semi-mythical creatures than gentler ones. Encountering these
fearsome animals in stories, films, and urban myths about devil dogs and
werewolves is a relatively safe way of distancing fears about personal mortal-
ity and evil within others and ourselves. Bruno Bettelheim, a psychotherapist,
in the mid-1960s and 1970s wrote about the deeper meaning of fairy stories.
He theorized that the wolf in the traditional Little Red Riding Hood/Little
Red Cap stories represents  all the asocial, animalistic tendencies within our-
selves as well as an external all-devouring force that signifies the primitive
human fear of being eaten alive and totally absorbed by another entity. 1
A healthy skepticism can be very useful in studying the realm of monsters.
However, new species are still being discovered in remote areas of rain-
forests, and it may be that some weird creatures are based on real creatures
in an unusual setting. The characteristics of a real animal may have been
exaggerated or misinterpreted by an active imagination if the creature was
seen in the dark or in misty conditions. Many years ago, I took my three-
year-old son, Jack, camping. He came rushing into the tent where I was
feeding the baby to tell me there was a giant panda bear outside. (A month
or so earlier, we had been to London Zoo, and Jack was fascinated by the
giant pandas.) As I idly questioned him, I realized this was no ordinary
escaped giant panda. With gestures and his relatively limited vocabulary,
Jack said the panda had huge curved horns on its head, a string tail, and
104 Fabulous Creatures, Mythical Monsters, and Animal Power Symbols
bones sticking out of its legs. It looked like a horse, but was fat with a tummy
that touched the floor and had bells on the end of the tummy. Of course
when I peered through the tent flap, wondering whether to take bell, book,
and candle, or to call a cryptozoologist or the local newspaper, there stood a
very large black-and-white, long-horned cow (which Jack had not seen
before), complete with hooves and very much in need of milking.
DEMON DOGS
These devil, or demon, dogs, as they are popularly called, are the alter ego
of the protective domesticated dog. They were the fierce spirit guard dogs
set, according to local folklore in rural England, by some supernatural force
to protect certain crossroads and highways. Crossroads themselves have
supernatural associations, being places where witches and suicide victims
were buried long ago. Crossroads were also linked in classical tradition to the
underworld goddess Hecate, who was the mistress of Cerberus the dog.
Cerberus guarded Hades, or the underworld. Hecate was accompanied by a
pack of wolves, so there may be a link with the idea of these wolflike dogs and
crossroads.
The majority of demon dogs are black. They are described as giant
Labradors or mastiffs with flamelike red eyes and are almost always said to
foretell doom when seen. Some of these black dogs are said to be souls of evil-
doers.
Black Shuck, the most dramatic of the huge black demon dogs, has been
apparently sighted for several hundred years in the countryside of East Anglia
on the east side of England, in the north of England especially on the east
coast, and on the Isle of Man. Black Shuck is as big as a calf with saucer-sized
eyes that glow yellow or red. The phenomenon of howling devil dogs like
Shuck has inspired many books, films, and plays, including Arthur Conan
Doyle s Hound of the Baskervilles.2 The two most fearsome Shuck incidents
reportedly occurred on the same day August 4, 1577. According to a pam-
phlet printed in 1577 by a local man, Abraham Fleming, the first instance
took place in St Mary s Church at Bungay, Suffolk, an area on the east coast
of England. There was a dreadful storm that day  darkness, hail, thunder
and lightning as was never seen before. The congregation was praying for
relief from the storm, when Shuck, with its huge teeth and claws, attacked the
people. A man and a boy in the belfry were apparently killed and the rest were
burned as the church spire crashed through the roof, breaking the font. The
tower bells fell, and the clock shattered as the dog ran snarling from the
church. It is not clear which injuries were inflicted by the dog and which
Monsters and Weird Creatures 105
injuries were caused by the fire and storm. In modern Bungay, Shuck is still
part of the town s coat of arms.
Of course a large, live black dog may have run into the church during the
service (it may have been tied outside the church by a parishioner) and with
the lightning strike occurring at the same moment, the storm and dog
became linked in people s minds with the local demon dog of legend. The
church would have been quite dark inside because of the storm, and everyone
would have been terrified even before the dog arrived. The terror and uproar
caused on seeing an apparent demon dog might have panicked even a rela-
tively docile living dog into attacking.
Then the dog traveled at great speed the twelve miles to another church,
in Blythburgh. The fiery hound attacked this congregation as well, killing
two people and leaving another injured  shriveled like a drawn purse was
the phrase given locally. Shuck is said to have left deep scorch marks on the
door at Blythburgh. In 1933, when the door was cleaned, burn marks local
legends say they are the devil s own fingerprints could be seen and remain
there even today.
The fact Shuck attacked people in a church was seen as confirmation he
was a servant of the devil. The Shuck stories probably derive from legends
brought by Viking invaders of Odin s black hounds and Thor s dog, Shukr. Of
course the dog and the hounds became demonized in Christianity. East
Anglia is a very flat area, often shrouded in mists from the sea, and was set-
tled by the Anglo-Saxons, who are related to the Danish Vikings from the
sixth century as well as being subject to Viking raids in the tenth century.3
Sightings of a huge black dog have been reported in Norfolk as recently as
the 1970s.
In America a demon dog is supposed to haunt Rose Hill in Maryland s Port
Tobacco. He is said to resemble a huge mastiff that glows. His fur is blue-
gray. Local lore explains this as a ghost dog, belonging to a soldier peddler.
The soldier was murdered in the area for his gold in the period before the
Civil War (in the early 1860s). The gold is said to be buried at the spot pro-
tected for all time by the dog, who was clubbed to death trying to protect his
master.
THE WILD HUNT
Following the Wild Hunt are packs of apparently supernatural hounds that
are either black or white. According to myth, they roam through the forests
of the skies with various pre-Christian deity huntsmen and -women, looking [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]