1938 (pub.): Brigg Black Dog

In the town of Brigg, in Lindsey Riding, Lincolnshire, England, there is a very unusual legend of a local haunting with a Black Dog that appears. An extremely old house that had been converted to a shop in front, had an area in the roof that had once held a private Catholic chapel. In 1935, when the house was visited by folklorist Ethel Rudkin, the altar itself had long since been sold to an antique dealer; but the area in the roof where it had once stood was still marked out by a set of altar rails.

        Rudkin was told that weird noises occurred in the house at night, and that doors opened and shut for no apparent reason. It was believed that a woman had once been murdered in the house, and that her spirit still roamed within the building and guarded the area of the altar in the form of a large Black Dog, with glowing eyes the size of saucers.

My Source

        This account was taken from a collection of Lincolnshire Black Dog accounts published by Folklorist Ethel Rudkin in 1938. The purpose of her study was to record the beliefs in the county regarding the phantom-like Black Dogs; but this particular tale does not quite fit in with the other local stories of Black Dogs, and sounds more genuinely like a straight-forward haunting tale... and since Rudkin doesn't claim to have any witnesses to what was described, I've listed this particular narrative as a Legend, rather than as an Anomaly.