Black Shuck at Bungay

Bungay, 1577. The storm broke, the doors flew open, and a black dog ran up the aisle between people at prayer.

Abraham Fleming's 1577 pamphlet tells how, during the same storm that struck Blythburgh, a black dog, or the Devil in its likeness, ran down the body of St Mary's church at Bungay while the people were at prayer. It passed between two kneeling worshippers and wrung their necks so that they died where they knelt. Another man it touched on the back shrank up like a drawn purse but lived. The church clock was broken and marks were left on the stones. A rhyme about the strange and terrible wonder is still repeated in the town, and the dog appears in the Bungay town sign and badge.