I came across this account of one of the many black dogs that haunt the English countryside and thought it might make a good poem. What struck me is that the dog was able to enter the church and kill parishioners. Typically the unholy can’t enter that sanctuary. Who else but Satan could get a beast through those doors?
This black dog, or the divel in such a likenesse (God hee knoweth al who worketh all,) running all along down the body of the church with great swiftnesse, and incredible haste, among the people, in a visible fourm and shape, passed between two persons, as they were kneeling uppon their knees, and occupied in prayer as it seemed, wrung the necks of them bothe at one instant clene backward, in somuch that even at a mome[n]t where they kneeled, they stra[n]gely dyed
-A Straunge and Terrible Wunder by Abraham Fleming in 1577
Black Shuck
Pupped in a hollow A witch’s teat for his comfort The devil bathed Black Shuck In ashes Put brimstone in his eyes Whispered: Find the holy places Where hatred Seethes Where candles are lit For your destruction And God Himself Wants you dead Make them fear you Clamp your jaws Around their pious domes Tear their heads Off their necks Listen, Shuck, to the rip And pop of ruined flesh And broken bone Open veins Drink the thick blood Bring to me the hearts Of our enemies We will feast on the Sweat meat My Hell-bred beast Go, Shuck! Go!
I like the blending of modern and Olde English sensibility in this poem.
Thank you!