Tag: folklore

Oddtober 2024: The Black Shuck

ETA: Last night, after completing this entry, I had a fourth “black shuck.” I’m reading a short story collection called Dark Blood Comes From the Feet by Emma J. Gibbon. One of the stories is called “The Black Shuck.” To paraphrase James Bond, “Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Third time is enemy action. The fourth time is the power of Oddtober compelling you.”

A common theme in my online life is that when I am not lost in a rabbit warren, I will notice an unlikely topic come up over and over in a very short span of time. That happened recently with the “black shuck,” the enormous black dog with shaggy fur that stalks the countrysides of the British Isles. Though I am familiar with the black dog of myth, I’d somehow never heard such dogs referred to as “the shuck” or “the black shuck.”  I’d been learning about mountaineering disasters and somehow that caused my YouTube algorithm to suggest missing persons cases that happened in the countrysides in Europe, which then led to a charming film about the black shuck.

This is such a touching film. The black dog, the “shuck,” is ushering a newly dead woman to her afterlife. The film only has two words of dialogue. “It’s time.” The black shuck waits patiently for the woman to come to terms with her death, licking the tears off her face, gently leading her to the door that will take her to the next plane of her existence. It could be seen by some as creepy but I found it sweet, a “death positive” look at confronting the greatest unknown of our lives: what happens when we die. It reminded me, in a gentle way, of the people I’ve lost, of the animals I’ve lost, and the melancholy I felt was a pleasant one.

After watching that video, I wondered where on earth the name “shuck” came from. Wikipedia helpfully told me that: “According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the name Shuck derives from the Old English word scucca ‘devil, fiend’, perhaps from the root skuh ‘to terrify’.” That does not really align with the shuck in the above short film. That black dog is hardly a demon, and I filed it away to look up again later.

The next day I found in the massive cache of television shows that I believe Mr. OTC is collecting in the event that we have another pandemic or several months to spend watching television non-stop, a BBC program called Charlie Cooper’s Myth Country: Black Shuck. Lord a’mercy, it was not particularly helpful, focusing more on the gormless, titular Charlie’s attempts to see and hopefully photograph the black shuck as he struggles with the bed in his van and forgets his mother’s birthday. He interviewed several people who saw the black shuck and had a folklore expert speak of this demon dog that terrified people when they saw it. The black shuck either has green or red glowing eyes, or appeared like a cyclops with a single glowing eye in the middle of its forehead. The dog is described as being huge, sometimes as large as a bull calf. The small amount of actual data wasn’t surprising because this is clearly some sort of schticky program focusing on the foibles of Charlie Cooper as much as the stated topic of the show. But the show did show me that the black shuck in the short film is a softer take on a demon dog that some feel is so terrifying because its sighting can presage death or impending doom.

Third time was the charm. I was digging through ‘zines I had purchased recently, looking for content that I could digest quicker than a novel. I had gone down a folklore rabbit hole and purchased a lot of folkish ‘zines, among them Shuck.

I ordered it recently, and I knew there was a wolf drawing on the cover but I never noticed really that the title is Shuck. I think I didn’t recall the title because the word “shuck” meant nothing to me. I just knew it was a Halloween-y themed ‘zine. Last time I tried to discuss one of the more prominent folk culture ‘zines, Hellebore, I ended up talking far too much about bog people, so something smaller and more focused to Halloween seemed a better bet. When I noticed the title, I knew I needed to talk about this ‘zine and shucks in general.

Shuck, Issue 1 – The Dark was released in October of 2020, and is one of the prettiest ‘zines I’ve explored recently. There is a wonderful continuity of style throughout the ‘zine, with black and white stylized drawings. The ‘zine handles fairly creepy topics, as most folklore ‘zines do, but there was something… bolstering about it. Uplifting. It made me wish I had the time this Halloween season to try some of the rituals mentioned in the ‘zine.

Of course the ‘zine discusses the black shuck:

He can be the size of a large dog or the size of a horse, headless or in possession of two glowing red eyes, or one yellow eye (or green, or red).

The ‘zine also clarifies the origin of the name:

His name is said to derive from the old Anglo-Saxon word ‘Scucca,’ which means Devil, or from a piece of regional dialect where ‘Shucky’ means ‘shaggy.’

What is the purpose of the black shuck? Well, there is some belief he was Odin’s dog of war (which marries well with the one-eyed shucks). A more interesting theory is that smugglers created the myth of the black dog with glowing eyes to scare off locals who would believe their lanterns and ship lights were frightening supernatural hell hounds and would stay away from the coastlines when they saw something glowing in the dark. The appearance of these dogs means a lot of things but in Norfolk, the region this ‘zine examines the most, seeing the black shuck is a universally bad thing, an omen or a portent of something terrible or evil that will soon happen or befall upon those who see it.

The ‘zine also features a sort of “shuck” family tree, where variations of this animal and their assorted names show how the legend of this dog can vary greatly in regions that are close together. For example, Ipswitch has the “shug monkey,” Suffolk features a creature known as the “galleytrot,” among other iterations of the same folkish animal.

Also in this ‘zine are rituals helpful for the folkish believer during Halloween. Want to host a “Dumb Supper,” a silent banquet held in honor of the beloved dead, hoping the silence and presence of their favorite foods might encourage the dead to speak to you? Want to make sure the dead pass your home by on All Hallows Eve and have an urge to bake something? This ‘zine has you covered. The ‘zine also covers topics like the folklorish significance of the Yew tree, the history of Mischief Night, the implications of nyctophobia, and explains why you should never follow something called “The Lantern Man.”

The part of this ‘zine most interesting to me was the explanation of a type of divination board used in a manner similar to a Ouija board. Called a “Charm Board,” you use little “charms” to represent yourself or your desires and you cast them on a board with symbols and spaces on the board that will tell you your fate depending on where your charms land. Later there is a tongue-in-cheek analysis of other folkish beliefs the author, Ada, tested for accuracy. And the back cover features a paper doll so you can clip and dress your own Wise Woman of Irstead.

Non-believer that I am, I concede that sometimes I see meaning in coincidences. Whether or not all these mentions of a dog-like creature can just be chalked up to the fact that I like unusual things and this time of year all kinds of media are teeming with stories of monsters, the fact is that all three times I encountered the black shuck this month involved very gentle media. The video “Shuck” was so touching. Charlie Cooper’s program was mostly silly. And Shuck Issue 1 – The Dark is the paper equivalent of an elderly auntie serving you hot tea as she tells you stories about sprites and faeries and rituals to keep garden trolls at bay.

I submerge myself into a lot of darkness. I’m currently rewriting an article about a child murder I wrote about a few years ago. I read entirely too much splatterpunk and extreme horror. I watch violent horror films on an almost daily basis. Lately I’ve been sick at heart watching the whole disgraceful P. Diddy situation unfold. I dwell in very upsetting places as a default and sometimes I don’t notice that even I periodically need a pick-me-up until I see something that does not provoke disgust or anger in me. Every now and then even the hardest among us need something that doesn’t force us to confront the harm that human beings do, to discuss blood and viscera or torture or murder, or to contemplate dark literature or even darker conspiracy theory. If mentions of the shuck came up three times in rapid succession so that I could have a small break from dead children or violent murder or terror in general, I see no harm in just rolling with it. Such topics generally are thrilling to me but even a hardened cultural traveler needs a rest now and then and the shuck turned out to be my temporary but unlikely respite.

Oh, two other things about Shuck ‘zine. One, you can get a copy of issue 1 here (I intend to get other issues in the future). The other is that the creator of the ‘zine, a writer who calls herself Ada, presented a drawing of her favorite gravestone. September 20 is a very significant date in my life so it was interesting to see it on a tombstone in this ‘zine.

I too have a favorite gravestone. It’s from the Old Corn Hill cemetery in Jarrell, Texas. September 20 again, and you’ll note that Ernest died while still a child. Which I think is a sign that I’ve enjoyed this nice little entry but have come full circle.

Next week Oddtober 2024 ends, and I will begin a more reasonable posting schedule. But we do have a few more days in this spooky month, which means a few more Oddtober entries. Among them, I plan to revive my custom of discussing the latest Doug Brunell Sinful Cinema Series offering. This year focuses on a cult-favorite horror film that most seasoned horror fans have seen. Good times await, see you next week!

The Liberty Hill Witch Grave: Bad Legends and Cemetery Desecration

I’d known about the legend of the infamous Liberty Hill witch grave for a while but only recently managed to drive up there and have a look around. It seemed a perfect thing to document for Halloween, because the legend, though unlikely, is fueled by witchcraft, cruel death and creepy graveyard stories, and though a creation of the digital age, seemed to have some interesting historical relevance. But this was one of those times when the damage done by the legend far outweighs the value of recently-created folklore.

The Liberty Hill witch grave is an example of new folklore, and is largely a creation of Internet sites that breathlessly repeat rumors as fact and take EVP tapes gathered by ghost hunters as solid evidence. My research shows that the stories of the witch grave really started to get traction in the last 20 years or so, and have been spread through ghost hunters who visit the cemetery at night to talk to the dead witch and assorted “weird” sites that tell ghost stories. Older locals in Andice and Liberty Hill, small towns north of Austin in the Texas Hill Country, especially those who don’t spend hours online each day, haven’t heard of the witch grave or only know about it now because they are appalled by the amount of destruction ghost hunters and drunk teenagers have done to the cemetery.

Often legends need to stand as they are – critical analysis of the legends seldom does any good because people who have a will to believe will not be dissuaded by facts and because most of the time truth in such stories doesn’t matter. For example, I’ve shared my trip to Baby Head, Texas on this site – Baby Head gets its name because there are stories of a Comanche raid that resulted in the beheading of a little settler girl. I don’t know if that happened, but have come to believe that because the first grave in the Baby Head Cemetery is that of a little girl who died on New Year’s Day, and because Baby Hill/Llano was once in the middle of Comanche territory, the town name may not be based in whole truth but is certainly derived from genuine trauma or terror.  Real Comanche incursions into pioneer settlements combined with that tiny dead girl fueled the legend of the little girl who lost her head to the Comanches, the girl behind the legend that gave Baby Head its name.  People who lived during the dangerous time described in the legend actually created the legend, so even if it is not wholly accurate the story was fueled by genuine experience.

Such legends are organic outgrowths of genuine events and even if they are not true in the factual sense, they are true in that they represent the collective fears and anxiety of a particular group of people in a particular place and time. The Liberty Hill witch grave is not one of those kinds of legends. It’s cobbled together using elements borrowed from other places and times, it’s not a story that attempts to explain some unpleasant reality of frontier life because tensions regarding slavery were long in the past when the myth was created (though certainly elements of the story may have some factual basis in social injustices that happened to other black women in Texas). It’s a bad ghost story that doesn’t really add to the lore of Texas or depict social issues of the past so much as it contributes to wholesale vandalism of historical sites.

(9/14/17:  I received an interesting email from a reader who didn’t want to leave a comment and prefers to remain anonymous, but the questions she raised are worth discussing so I am going to address her concerns in the sections appropriate.  She was alarmed by what she perceived as a statement I made that in modern Texas there are no racial divisions and racist actions perpetrated by citizens and authority figures. As a life-long Texan I certainly know there are problems with racism in my home state. The point I was trying to make is that the Liberty Hill witch legend is not a legend that attempts to portray or explain the travails of female slaves. Instead it’s a modern mishmash of assorted legends that don’t represent the experiences or customs of any person alive when slavery was still legal in Texas.

I am unwilling to cede the leeway given in other inaccurate but culturally important legends to the tale of “Elizebeth Simpson.” The Liberty Hill witch grave story was created at least 130 years after the Civil War.  The people who created the legend were probably at least four generations removed from anyone who was held in bondage in Texas or owned slaves.  The person who created the witch legend did not directly experience slavery in Texas.  The racial climate when this story was created was not perfect but it was significantly different than it was in the 1860s. The world is and always will be racist to varying degrees but it, for me, a bridge too far to think that whoever created the Liberty Hill witch legend did so with the intent of representing racial tensions he or she never experienced in a time long past. That makes this legend all the more offensive because it becomes a placeholder, and a particularly bad one at that, for the stories of actual black women who were subject to extrajudicial punishments and lynchings.)

So let me tell you about the story of the Liberty Hill witch grave, show you some pictures, and then explain, using common sense, why the story is nonsense, and using factual record to show why it’s absolutely false. I’m going to leave the analysis of the myth under the cut so that way people who just want to revel in the ghost story can skip my commentary.  Also, I have set up an album in Flickr that shows the whole of the cemetery so those who love cemetery porn can see some old Texas graves, some of genuine historical worth.

Click on any picture in this entry to see a larger version.

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North entrance into Bittick Cemetery. This sign was erected in 2004 after the wooden sign was destroyed by vandals.

The Liberty Hill witch grave, located in the Bittick family cemetery in Williamson County, is said to contain the mortal remains of a slave named “Elizebeth Simpson.” The legend says that in 1862, “Elizebeth Simpson,” a slave woman, was hanged to death for stealing one of her master’s horses. She was dragged to the Bittick family cemetery, hanged from one of the oak trees in the center of the parcel of land, then cut down and buried there.  Other legends indicate Elizebeth was hanged for witchcraft but witches in the Hill Country were thin on the ground.  I can’t find a single historical record to indicate anyone was ever executed for witchcraft in Texas.  Frankly the horse story makes a lot more sense – stealing livestock is serious business even now, but common thieves seldom make curses from the grave the way hanged witches do.

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What’s left of “Elizebeth Simpson’s” gravestone.

Her stone said she was born on April 10, 1834 and died on September 24, 1862. Her head stone had the following saying:

And remember as yo ar pasin by yo must die as well as I

That inscription has been interpreted by some to be a dark curse of sorts, with people insisting it means that anyone who walks in front of “Elizebeth’s” grave will be hanged unless they leave her some sort of offering to appease her.  And I use past tense describing the stone because it’s been destroyed – I am relying on an older picture of the stone I’ve found online to show its original form. A picture taken by someone else before it was wholly obliterated is under the cut.

 

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Debris and offerings left at “Elizebeth’s” gravestone.

Ghost hunters have come to “Elizebeth’s” stone and recorded all kinds of EVPs they claim demonstrate moans they claim no one heard while they were recording, as well as ghostly whispers.

To keep from being hexed by the curse on the stone, or possibly in attempts to curry favor with the dead slave, people leave gifts and offerings on the grave, like toys, alcohol and coins. Curiously, other stones throughout the cemetery are covered in coins, mostly pennies and quarters. I worry that because “Elizebeth’s” stone has been destroyed and lacks visual impact that ghost seekers are going to other graves.  One grave of a dead child who was born the day before Halloween 150 years ago was festooned with quarters, and a rock tomb belonging to a child was also covered with change.

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Toys and cigarettes left for “Elizebeth.” The cough drops seem a pretty thoughtful gift for a witch whose throat likely hurts after being hanged.
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Note the “X” marks at the bottom of the stone. These are reminiscent of marks left on Voodoo Queen Marie Laveau’s tomb.

Some try to raise her spirit to speak to them via seances and ouija boards.  Mr OTC found this handmade ouija board folded up in some tall grass in the northwest corner of the cemetery.

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Impromptu attempts to speak to the dead.

Far creepier than leaving beer bottles on the gravestone of a possibly executed slave woman is that it appears that people engage in carnal activities on or near “Elizebeth’s” grave.

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Never a good sign when you find condom wrappers in a cemetery.
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It’s an even worse sign when you find used hand towels and empty beer bottles near a condom wrapper in a cemetery.

I would like to beg everyone who thinks of going into this cemetery to commune with a dead woman to please not have sex on her grave.  From the standpoint of courtesy, having sex on a grave is impolite.  But I suspect the sorts of folk who fornicate in cemeteries are not often bothered by social niceties.  If you are the sort who doesn’t care about graveyard etiquette, bear in mind I got poison oak just walking through the cemetery – the sap seeped through my jeans.   And let us not speak of all the broken glass from shattered beer bottles around “Elizebeth’s” stone.  If you anger the dead by engaging in any sort of activity that may require even partial nudity, you may find the dead achieve vengeance in itchy or painful ways. Be sure your tetanus shot is up to date.

So here we go – the physical location where people go to talk to, torment, or otherwise irritate a woman they believe was a slave witch executed in the cemetery for stealing a horse or for being a witch.

Now let me explain to you why none of this happened and why this legend is so tiresome where history and the residents of Liberty Hill are concerned.

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