The Black Dog of Bungay & Other Spectral Beasts

Dark Histories

Ben Cutmore

History

4.8 • 2.2K Ratings

🗓️ 9 January 2023

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

From ancient origins, to Churchill, who popularised the Victorian phrase “The black dog on your back”, the concept of the spectral black dog as a portent of doom, death and catastrophe is one that has maintained, with a constant slow progression throughout centuries. From musty old tomes maintained in cold damp monasteries, to the pages of Harry Potter, the Black Dog, Old Shuck, the Barghest, the Guytrash and the Skriker have haunted the stories of our rural landscapes and worked their way into the global imagination like almost nothing else in popular folklore. This weeks episode was sponsored by The Art of Crime Podcast, check them out here: https://www.artofcrimepodcast.com/Sources Chambers, Robert (1894) The Book of Days: A Miscellany of Popular Antiquities… W & R Chambers, London, UK. Waldron, David & Reeve, Christopher (2010) Shock! The Black Dog of Bungay. Hidden Publishing, London, UK. Waldron, George (1744) The History and Description of the Isle of Man. W.Bickerton, UK. Dutt, W. A. (1901) Highways and Byways in East Anglia. Macmillan and Co. LTD. UK. L’Estrange Ewen, C. (1929) Witch Hunting & Witch Trials. Routledge, London, UK. E.S.T. (1850) Notes & Queries 1850-05-18: Vol 1 Iss 29. Oxford Publishing Limited, UK. Brown, Theo (1978) The Black Dog in English Folklore. D. S. Brewer, UK. Parkinson, Thomas (1888) Yorkshire Legends & traditions. ------- For almost anything, head over to the podcasts hub at darkhistories.com Support the show by using our link when you sign up to Audible: http://audibletrial.com/darkhistories or visit our Patreon for bonus episodes and Early Access: https://www.patreon.com/darkhistories The Dark Histories books are available to buy here: http://author.to/darkhistories Dark Histories merch is available here: https://bit.ly/3GChjk9 Connect with us on Facebook: http://facebook.com/darkhistoriespodcast Or find us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/darkhistories & Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dark_histories/ Or you can contact us directly via email at [email protected] or join our Discord community: https://discord.gg/cmGcBFf The Dark Histories Butterfly was drawn by Courtney, who you can find on Instagram @bewildereye Music was recorded by me © Ben Cutmore 2017 Other Outro music was Paul Whiteman & his orchestra with Mildred Bailey - All of me (1931). It's out of copyright now, but if you're interested, that was that.

Transcript

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0:00.0	From ancient origins to Churchill, who popularised the Victorian phrase, the Black Dog on your
0:07.4	back, the concept of the spectral Black Dog as a portent, doom, death and catastrophe
0:12.7	is one that has maintained with a constant slope regression throughout centuries.
0:17.4	From musty old times, maintaining cold damp monasteries to the pages of Harry Potter,
0:22.6	the Black Dog, Old Shuck, the Barguest, the Guy Trash, and the Skryker have haunted
0:28.3	the stories of our rural landscapes and work their way into the global imagination, like
0:32.9	almost nothing else in popular folklore.
0:35.3	This is Dark History, by the fact it's a worse than fiction.
0:45.2	Hello and welcome to Dark History, Season 7, Episode 1.
0:49.9	Welcome to the new season, it's always great to be back, it's always great to have had
0:55.8	a little bit of time off in December, but I'm always itching to get back on the microphone
1:01.1	and get episodes out by about half way through the break, as always.
1:06.5	True to form, I managed to come down with the flu thing that's been going around, so
1:11.8	my voice is a little bit off today, I have saved the recording of this episode till the
1:17.4	last possible moment, so that I could get rid of as much congestion as possible, and
1:22.7	I will do my best to filter out any cold-like sounds that might get picked up on the mic,
1:31.0	but hopefully it won't be too much for a problem.
1:33.6	So anyway, first episode of the season, I don't really like to do all the beggin and stuff
1:38.3	throughout the year, but because it's the first episode of the year, do you just want
1:42.1	to chuck out a little request if you'd like to review the show on whatever platform you
1:47.8	use, whether that be like Apple or Spotify or whatever, then that'd be really great and
1:51.9	really useful.
	...

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