1937 Cornish Black Dog Scare May 4, 2014
Author: Beach Combing | in : Contemporary , trackback
The phantom dog of Linkinhorne was one of the south-western dandy dogs that have terrified locals since time immemorial. What is particularly interesting though about this dog from the past is that it returned in 1937 and caused a local panic. Here are a number of the best stories from the outbreak. The first reference I’ve come across dates to 19 Feb 1937
The ghost a black dog which was once supposed to haunt lonely stretch of road leading from Linkinhorne to Stoke Climsland near Callington, Cornwall, is reputed to have re-appeared. Mrs. Hocking, of Plusha Brisge, Linkinhorne, states that while returning home after a visit to friends she found a black dog slinking along by her side. ‘It was as big as a sheep,’ she declares, ‘and had a long tail. I spoke to it, and went to switch on an electric torch I was carrying, and the dog vanished. It was clear night, and there were no hedges it could have jumped over.’ Mrs. Hocking had not heard the legend of the phantom dog.
20 February there is a story about the non-appearance of the dog: always a sign of great local interest!
For three hours last night Mr. W. H. Paynter of Callington, the Cornish Bard, who is well known for his investigation of the supernatural in Cornwall, had on behalf of The Western Morning News been investigating the alleged reappearance of the ghost dog said to haunt a stretch of road at Linkinhorne. In a gale of wind, and with the young moon being continually obscured heavy black clouds, he walked up and down the road where the dog is supposed to have appeared. The alleged ghost is becoming public nuisance. he says, for people in the vicinity are afraid to venture out after dark. In fact, even in the daytime people who know the story of the ghost walk briskly. When he left the ‘haunted’ road at ten o’clock two young men arrived from Liskeard. They were interested in the subject of ghosts, and were going to walk up and down the road until midnight. Mr. Paynter did not disappoint them when he told that according to the story the ghost dog appeared to those who waited for him. ‘we shall wait and see’ they said until the witching hour’. Mr. Paynter was sorry he could not keep them company, but if the ghost is seen again he is determined to lay it. He has the necessary formula for a ceremony. There is only one way to deal with a ghost. It is to assume first that the manifestations are signs of the presence of a tormented soul, that the disturbance a call from the dead. Then find out what is the nightmare from which the dead is suffering, dissipate it and with the nightmare the ghost will go. At first the dog only appeared by night, but now, according to the story told Mr Paynter by Mr. Spink and his son, of Gunnislake, it has been seen the daytime. Last Tuesday, they said, about 11 a.m., they saw a black dog coming toward them, and suddenly disappear. They are positive it was the ghost. Mr. F. Faviour, a chemist and druggist, of Gunnislake told Mr. Paynter that about a fortnight or so ago, when riding a bicycle, he met the dog. ‘In the light of my bicycle lamp I saw it coming towards me. and just as it got abreast of me it disappeared into thin air’ he added. Miss P. Truscott, of Rilla Mill, speaks of something following her, and as it passed her she felt a cold sensation. She could not see what it was because of the darkness, but it was certainly something uncanny. Mr. Joseph Mitchell, Mrs. Hocking, and Mr. Thomas Harris, of Plusha Bridge, are sure they saw the dog. Mr. Joe Mitchell did not know it was supposed to be the ghost of a man killed many years ago at Mark Valley Mine. He always considered it to be one of the death hounds. According to him. many years ago huntsmen and a pack of hounds ran through the district and came to an untimely end and some of the hounds have haunted the district ever since. Mr. F Goodman is afraid the appearance foreshadows some tragedy.
23 Feb the Western Morning News ran a couple of letters on the subject one giving history and one offering solace.
Sir, The interesting account of Mr. H. Paynter’s night vigil for the Black Dog brought to mind a story of curious happenings in this parish (Linkinhorne) in my early days. It was commonly reported and believed by little children that a Black Dog travelled nightly between Liskeard and Launceston, taking the road Tokenbury Corner, Upton Cross, Darley, Middlewood, thence to Launceston. The dog was known as the Carrier, and he would pick up children found on the road after nightfall and take them to some unknown destination. Of course, the story had the desired effect, namely, to keep children indoors after dark. One man. greatly daring, decided to shoot the Carrier, and one dark night took up a position with a shotgun, commanding that is known locally as Trawsa Cross, where the dog would have to pass. He reported that he saw the dog and shot at it. But when he came down to the cross the dog, like his present-day representative, had disappeared. That was in the ’60s of the last century. But the schoolmaster has been abroad for close on 70 years, even in the remote parish of Linkinhorne, and it seems almost unbelievable that the Black Dog should be resurrected after such a long period THOMAS SHOVEL. Upton Cross. Callington, Feb. 20.
Sir, Appearance of ‘ghost dog’ at Linkinhorne ought to revive interest in dog-racing shares. Those who have been so fortunate as to see the apparition have no need to fear it. It is evidently an elemental, a being subject neither to space nor time. Judging by the description I should conclude that was among the benevolent elemental type, which signifies neither disaster nor evil and can be easily dissipated by a strong light, such as an electric torch. These elementals are more common than people suppose, and partake sometimes of the malignant type. No formulae or incantations are required to allay these alleged ghosts. A small phial of radium salts exposed on sight is said to dissipate the most malignant form of haunting, which frequents often high and solitary places, stagnant pools, coppices, and some houses. G. BELL. Windsor-lane, Plymouth,
Radium?! This was a first.
Then the original witness responds to the elemental question. This is valuable because it is essentially an affirmation of what she actually experienced without journalists getting in the way.
I read with great interest Mr. G. Bell’s letter headed ‘Is It Elemental?’ My mind since meeting this mystery has been utter chaos. If it were an elemental (as I would like to believe), would the thing have retained its perfect form all the way of its journey towards and by the side of me? Or would it not have become contorted as it passed through the atmosphere? It appeared so real I should never have known but that a large prowling dog had passed me if I had not had torch with me —my thumb already on the switch. I am still bewildered, but not nervous, as it appeared to avoid rather than to attack BELLA HOCKING. Plusha Bridge, Linkinhorne, Feb. 24.
6 March there is a report of a reward offered for a photograph. Then the last report dates to September when a letter writer mocks the sightings of the dog just months before and says it was ‘literally hounded to death’. Probably the incorrect use of literally here but you never know… I see in Kithra’s cave an account that the ghost dog was alleged to be a real dog. I’ve found no reference to this in contemporary reports, though the database on these findings is limited. Any more: drbeachcombing At yahoo DOT com
I’ll close in tribute to the dog with this generous poem from 9 March 1937 entitled ‘THE PHANTOM OF LINKINHORNE‘
Stealthily down a lonely road
Only the stars defend,
The big black dog of Linkinhorne
Seeks for a vanished friend.
The face of the Master he has lost,
The touch of a gentle hand
Comforting warmth and human love
That he can understand.
A phantom dog on a lonely road
Waiting for time to cease
The voice of his master calling him
That he may sleep in peace.
MARY HELLYAR. 7 May 2014: Mark Norman writes in ‘I am an independent folklore researcher based in Devon and currently writing a book and database on UK Black Dog folklore, which I have been researching and collecting for many years. I can tell you the precise route of the Linkinhorne Black Dog if it is helpful for your blog. It ran from Mark Valley Mine, through Rillamill, up Sellars and past Two Gates in Linkinhorne, to Stoke Climsland. Also, an interesting postscript to your article. You finish with a short poem from Mary Hellyar about the dog. This is the reason that I hit your page. Interestingly, there was a personal family banshee in Cornwall that I am trying to trace which was said to appear to members of a certain family just prior to a death in the family. It seems to be connected firstly to the Peters family, and latterly to the Hellyar family. It would be an interesting coincidence if the Hellyar who wrote your poem is part of the same family!’ Thanks Mark looking forward to the book! Then there is Chris from Haunted Ohio Books on radium salts: Ah, the “protective radium salts” theory! Here’s where it seems to have arisen. I quote from The Adventures of a Modern Occultist , Oliver Bland, 1920. In 1913 a well-known student of occult matters[* Capt. Hugh Pollard was the author of this theory. His monograph was never printed, but typescripts of his sensational lecture before the members of the now defunct Odic Club] announced his theory of ‘Protective Vibrations.’ [After some talk of “ether” and “charges” and “radium atoms” and “psychoplasms,” the author cuts to the chase.] I determined to pay a visit to the well-known and malignant ghost at X. and actually put to the test whether or not a ghost can manifest in the presence of a radium salt. The rays of radioactive salts are unable to pass through lead, and pure radium bromide, which is the nearest that we have got to the isolation of the element radium, always has to be kept in a leaden box or cell, as otherwise its rays would pass through and destroy the skin and flesh of the man carrying it. Before the properties of radium were known, this destructive faculty of radium vibrations caused several mishaps for unwary men of science carried these dangerous salts loose in glass vials in their pockets. For the purposes of experiment I obtained the loan of a small supply of a solution of a radium salt that gives out powerful emanations. This was enclosed in a glass vial which was in turn encased in a leaden box. [I’ll skip the several pages of Elliott O’Donnell-like prose about the oppressive and decayed aspect of the building. Suffice it to say that the plaster was “corpse-grey.”] I unpacked my handbag, in which I carry the few simple necessities I need on these occasions, and wrapping myself up in my travelling rug composed myself to read by the light of my travelling candles until the hour of ten was reached. At ten o’clock I closed my book, put out my candle, and composed myself to watch for the manifestation, which I knew by inner consciousness would be forthcoming. It was a dark and moonless night and not a flicker or ray of external light penetrated the dark stretches of the haunted room. No wind stirred the trees or moaned in the chimney tops and the qualities of absolute dark and absolute quiet were all that could be desired. Slowly out of the darkness seemed to come pinpoints of bluish light—mere specks of phosphorescence scintillant in the still air. The specks thickened and multiplied till they floated like a maze of dancing midgets; then too came the dark power of oppression, that sense of the dread and the uncanny that seems to grip the very heart and the base of the skull in a numbing grip of fear. Cold grew the room, colder and colder–that sense of freezing that experienced psychics associate with the dread phenomena of malevolent apparitions. It is a coldness of the soul as well as of the body, a dull biting cold that suggests the limitless freezing eternities of interstellar space. The blue specks spun their dance and slowly became more luminous. They collected in little nebula of light like cigarette ends of intense blue radiance. Every particle of the air was filled with this luminosity, so that the room seemed to be filled with a dull moonlight. Slowly the nebulae changed from their spinning movement to a slow weaving motion. Strands and floating webs of phosphorescence drifted like smoke wreaths about the room. The points of light gave place to clouds of luminous mist like softly rolling, utterly silent globes of dull blue light. Little by little the dance of the globes speeded up. They spun and whirled and wove in and out among themselves till they had drawn into one mass all the luminous matter in the room. Like a terror-charged cloud this mass hovered some eight feet high, a clear two feet off the floor; its brilliance waxed and waned and its confines drew in. Slowly the cloud was taking shape as a pillar and within the pillar one could see the ghastly shaping of the rudimentary form. Here before my eyes was the actual form of the stranger—for this ghost is a malevolent strangling demon—on the very point of concentration. Carefully I stretched out my hand to the leaden box, unscrewed the cylindrical lid, and threw into my right hand the precious vial of radium salt. The energy-charged tube glowed in the dark with all the beauty of intense phosphorescence, and as I held it at arm’s length toward the pillar of semi-materialization that represented all the evil forces of discarnate Hate–the mists of vapour rolled away. As if by magic the whole apparition was dissipated, and in twenty seconds was as if it had never been. There is little more to be said. The theory had been brilliantly vindicated in practice, but it is impossible to generalize from one particular instance. Physicists know the wide range of differences that exist between the different radium salts, and there the matter must rest until opportunity for further experiments is available. The analogous protective vibrations that the author of the monograph alleges would work are all probable, but require considerably more apparatus. To my mind the use of radioactive salts as talismans with which to exorcise a case of malignant haunting is at once a great and practical step in the direction of relieving humanity of these troublesome psychic intruders. The discovery and the theory are one of the most remarkable contributions to psychic science in our time. This passage comes from The Adventures of a Modern Occultist , Oliver Bland, 1920. Despite The Adventures being widely reviewed and Bland being quoted in the press as an “author, thinker, famous seeker after knowledge, who made a study of the subconscious workings of the brain,” I can find nothing personal about the author, either in my reference books or online. I’ve seen a note in a dictionary of pseudonyms suggesting that Oliver Bland was a pen name for H[ugh].B[ertie].C[ampbell]. Pollard, who was a British journalist, intelligence officer, and firearms expert. As we see above, Bland references Pollard as the author of this theory of “protective vibrations,” which seems suspiciously like his little joke. I think I’m right in saying that the radium salts tale is a single-source story originating with “Oliver Bland,” but it was widely syndicated in the newspapers as a sensational true story, which may be where “G. Bell” heard of it. ‘ Thanks Chris and Mark!
