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The Hounds of Hell
By Kelly Bell
FATE :: November 2006
The people of Bungay, Suffolk, in England gave little thought to the lowering skies as they assembled for worship services on Sunday, August 4, 1577.
Thunderstorms are commonplace in the dreary British Isles, but this tempest was preceded by a midnight-type darkness. As a violent gale swept through the church, ripping shutters from their hinges, the fearful parishioners realized something untoward had joined the services.
Illuminated by flashes of lightning, a monstrous form galloped howling among the congregation. It looked to the God-fearing churchgoers like a bigger-than-usual floppy-eared Pyrenees sheep dog except that it was tar-black. Terrified by this fearsome apparition, most of the witnesses dropped to their knees in prayer. The specter passed between two of these praying supplicants, brushing against them and striking both dead. One onlooker later described how a third man the creature grazed “shriveled up like a drawn purse,” but survived.
After a few more seconds of rushing among the panicked church members, the yowling vision charged out the building’s north door. To this day cryptic burn marks left by the phantom remain visible on the wooden door. The metalworkings of the church’s belfry clock were left twisted and broken by the creature’s passing.
Later that morning the same or a similar demon visited another church seven miles away and wrought similar havoc. Survivors described how it killed two men and “blasted” everyone else.
Everyone knows of the standard animal familiars of the unholy. Black cats, pigs, goats, bats, and snakes have been associated with Satan since the Garden of Eden. Halloween would not be complete without them. Yet perhaps the most terrifying animal form assumed by the Lord of Darkness and his minions has remained mysteriously obscure. Although dogs were so revered by followers of the Egyptian goddess Isis that her worshippers feasted on dog meat, perhaps being man’s best friend has shielded the humble, lovable dog from earning a reputation that by all rights should have ruined its wholesome image.
The Suffolk monsters were not isolated cases, nor were they anything new. In fact, the people of this region had had so many encounters with hellish black dogs that by the time of the 1577 incidents they had hung the nickname “Old Shock” on the phantom ...
Read the rest of this article in the November 2006 issue of FATE
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