All Things Nosferatu

In the UK, we've just had a new set of stamps issued, all about creatures from British folklore. Here they are; 

https://shop.royalmail.com/myths-legends-stamp-set

The most significant to this page is Black Shuck, a great unearthly black dog who can be found all over the Isles, the like of which is mentioned in Bram Stoker's Dracula on the arrival of the Demeter in Whitby.


'...Strangest of all, the very instant the shore was touched, an immense dog sprang up on deck from below, as if shot up by the concussion, and running forward, jumped from the bow on the sand. Making straight for the steep cliff, where the churchyard hangs over the laneway to the East Pier so steeply that some of the flat tombstones—“thruff-steans” or “through-stones,” as they call them in the Whitby vernacular—actually project over where the sustaining cliff has fallen away, it disappeared in the darkness[...]
A good deal of interest was abroad concerning the dog which landed when the ship struck, and more than a few of the members of the S. P. C. A., which is very strong in Whitby, have tried to befriend the animal. To the general disappointment, however, it was not to be found; it seems to have disappeared entirely from the town. It may be that it was frightened and made its way on to the moors, where it is still hiding in terror. There are some who look with dread on such a possibility, lest later on it should in itself become a danger, for it is evidently a fierce brute. '

Ostensibly, this is Dracula making a break for it, though he seems to prefer the form of a wolf on other occasions. The Church behind the beast denoted in the stamp is nothing like Whitby Abbey but it does resemble St Mary's which stands beside the 199 steps closer to the Whitby cliffs.  

Many of Bram Stoker's readers would have recognised this dog as a sign of very ill omen. It goes by countless names including the Barghest, Padfoot, Gytrash, Mauthe Doog, Cwn Anwwn  etc. The dog is inevitably described as enormous,  black, red eyed  (if it has a head at all) and very fierce. Having said that, in at least one region in Lincolnshire it's been described as a protector of women walking the roads at night, and in some parts of Somerset it is thought to protect children as they play. But Whitby's local version is not benign. Legend says that to hear the beast howl means the listener will die or lose a loved one soon. And nearby Kettleness -  an area over which Mina watches the sun set - has its own problems with the phantom black dog.

The 1950s saw  Dr Donald Omand quoting a letter he received from a schoolteacher describing a frightening experience. ‘On visiting Kettleness  they [teacher and friends] all experienced a wave of terror when, looking over the shore to the misty sea, they had seen a huge hound—so large it could not be mortal—appear out of thin air. Silent with shock they watched it move towards them before disappearing as silently and mysteriously as it had come. All three were left with such a strong sense of evil that the schoolmaster believed it was a case desperately in need of exorcism.‘ - To Anger the Devil by Marc Alexander, 1978

A dog out of the mist bound sea? Sounds familiar! Apparently Dr Omand had been greatly affected by the novel Dracula. He later described exorcising the creature, but his mental health became/had been affected, and he had a breakdown.

There's a curious footnote to this; Close by Kettleness and Whitby is an old Roman signal station, near which it is said archeologists discovered a man's skeleton alongside that of a large dog. Some say the two were buried curled around each other, others claim that the dog was positioned with its jaws right at the man's throat...