Black Dog of the Blue Ridge

Throughout Appalachia, there are tales of "phantom dogs" and it is widely believed that these stories were carried to the New World by European immigrants long ago. The most famous of these ghostly dogs has to be the Snarly Yow, but my favorite tale is of the "Black Dog of the Blue Ridge." It is the story of both a frightening apparition and a loyal companion to the end—and beyond.

Writing in the Journal of American Folklore in 1907, Mrs. R.F. Herrick recounted the tale:

In Botetourt County, Virginia, there is a pass that was much traveled by people going to Bedford County and by visitors to mineral springs in the vicinity. In the year 1683, the report was spread that at the wildest part of the trail in this pass there appeared at sunset a great black dog, who, with majestic tread, walked in a listening attitude about two hundred feet and then turned and walked back. Thus he passed back and forth like a sentinel on guard, always appearing at sunset to keep his nightly vigil and disappearing again at dawn. And so the whispering went with bated breath from one to another, until it had traveled from one end of the state to the other.

Parties of young cavaliers were made up to watch for the black dog. Many saw him. Some believed him to be a veritable dog sent by some master to watch; others believed him to be a witch dog. A party decided to go through the pass at night, well armed, to see if the dog would molest them. Choosing a night when the moon was full they mounted good horses and sallied forth. Each saw a great dog larger than any dog they had ever seen, and, clapping spurs to their horses, they rode forward. But they had not calculated on the fear of their steeds. When they approached the dog, the horses snorted with fear, and in spite of whip, spur, and rein gave him a wide berth, while he marched on as serenely as if no one were near. The party was unable to force their horses to take the pass again until after daylight. Then they were laughed at by their comrades to whom they told their experiences. Thereupon they decided to lie in ambush, kill the dog, and bring in his hide.

The next night found the young men well hidden behind rocks and bushes with guns in hand. As the last ray of sunlight kissed the highest peak of the Blue Ridge, the black dog appeared at the lower end of his walk and came majestically toward them. When he came opposite, every gun cracked. When the smoke cleared away, the great dog was turning at the end of his walk, seemingly unconscious of the presence of the hunters. Again and again they fired, and still, the dog walked his beat, and fear caught the hearts of the hunters, and they fled wildly away to their companions, and the black dog held the pass at night unmolested.

Time passed, and year after year went by, until seven years had come and gone, when a beautiful woman came over from the old country, trying to find her husband who eight years before had come to make a home for her in the new land. She traced him to Bedford County, and from there all trace of him was lost. Many remembered the tall, handsome man and his dog. Then there came to her ear the tale of the vigil of the great dog of the mountain pass, and she pleaded with the people to take her to see him, saying that if he was her husband’s dog, he would know her.

A party was made up, and before night they arrived at the gap. The lady dismounted and walked to the place where the nightly watch was kept. As the shadows grew long, the party fell back on the trail, leaving the lady alone, and as the sun sank into his purple bed of splendor the great dog appeared. Walking to the lady, he laid his great head in her lap for a moment, then turning he walked a short way from the trail, looking back to see that she was following. He led her until he paused by a large rock, where he gently scratched the ground, gave a long, low wail, and disappeared. The lady called the party to her and asked them to dig. As they had no implements, and she refused to leave, one of them rode back for help. When they dug below the surface, they found the skeleton of a man and the hair and bones of a great dog. They found a seal ring on the hand of the man and a heraldic embroidery in silk that the wife recognized. She removed the bones for proper burial and returned to her old home. It was never known who had killed the man. But from that time to this the great dog, having finished his faithful work has never appeared again.

Herrick, Mrs. R. F. “The Black Dog of the Blue Ridge.” Journal of American Folklore 20 (1907): 151-52.

This story and others like are featured in Strange Tales from Virginia's Mountains published by The History Press.

My Most Popular Posts

Giant Bones in West Virginia

Image
When the Bible famously declared that “there were giants on the earth in those days,” in Genesis 6:4, the writer wasn’t kidding—especially when it comes to West Virginia. In the early days of our nation, people routinely unearthed giant bones in the Mountain State. Giant Bones Countless newspapers and county histories in the 1800s told the story of giant bones. Stories such as these were commonplace: “It is said that a jawbone was plowed up near Moorefield which would pass over the outside of a common man's lower jaw; that it contained eight jaw teeth on either side, and that they sat transversely in their sockets. A bone of that size would have belonged to a man eight or nine feet high… Another jawbone of enormous size is recorded as having been discovered near Martinsburg.” Hu Maxwell and H. L. Swisher,  History of Hampshire County West Virginia from Its Earliest Settlement to the Present  (Morgantown, WV: A. Brown Boughner, 1897) “While digging a grave on Trace Fork, Lincoln
Read more

The Giants from the West

Image
The ethnologist James Mooney (1861–1921) wrote of ancient giants in his 1902 book, Myths of the Cherokee . The section titled "The Giants from the West" is an intriguing account. I have reprinted it below: THE GIANTS FROM THE WEST James Wafford, of the western Cherokee, who was born in Georgia in 1806, says that his grandmother, who must have been born about the middle of the last century, told him that she had heard from the old people that long before her time a party of giants had come once to visit the Cherokee. They were nearly twice as tall as common men, and had their eyes set slanting in their heads, so that the Cherokee called them Tsunil' kalu', "The Slant-eyed people," because they looked like the giant hunter Tsul'kalu' (see the story). They said that these giants lived very far away in the direction in which the sun goes down. The Cherokee received them as friends, and they stayed some time, and then returned to their home in the we
Read more

The Giants of Ancient Tennessee

Image
John Haywood (1753-1826) was a historian known as the "father of Tennessee history." These days, he might be best known for documenting giant skeletons found in Tennessee, as well as popularizing the "Tennessee Pygmies." In Haywood's 1823 work, The Natural and Aboriginal History of Tennessee , he documented several unique discoveries. These include giant skeletons found in Tennessee, particularly in and around White County. Haywood devoted a section to the giant skeletons found in Tennessee in his book. The entire section (Chapter VIII, section 1) is printed below: First, then—Of their Size. This is ascertained by the length and dimensions of the skeletons which are found in East and West Tennessee. These will prove demonstratively, that the ancient inhabitants of this country, either the primitive or secondary settlers, were of gigantic stature , compared with the present races of Indians.  On the farm of Mr. John Miller, of White county, are a numbe
Read more

Pensacola Sea Monster Attacks Teenage Boys

Image
On March 26, 1962, the Ocala Star-Banner ran an article about a Pensacola sea monster that attacked five teenage boys. The piece was titled “4 Teenage Skindivers Still Missing After Raft is Abandoned.” The text of the story is as follows: Four teenaged skindivers remained missing today after abandoning their tide-swept rubber raft in the Gulf of Mexico Saturday. A fifth youth swam two miles to shore about dark Saturday. The four were Bradford Rice, 14, Warren Felley, 16, Eric Ruyle, 16, and Larry Stuart Bill, 17. The fifth youth was Brian McCleary, 16 found sleeping on a beach near Fort McRae early Sunday. McCleary said he and the other four were skindiving in the gulf when the tide began carrying them to sea. Swells broke over their raft. He said they tried to move to a buoy but missed. Then, he said, they abandoned the raft to swim ashore. The raft washed ashore on Gulf Beach. Face masks, shoes, and fins were inside. McCleary said he, Bill and Ruyle developed cra
Read more

The Wa-gas

Image
In her book To the American Indian, Lucy Thompson (1856–1932), a member of the Yurok tribe whose Yurok name was Che-na-wah Weitch-ah-wah, recorded many of the tales of her people. One of the most interesting stories in the book is that of the Wa-gas. According to Thompson, the Wa-gas were an ancient race of white people that lived in North America many thousands of years ago. However, these folks were much different than Europeans who colonized the Americas in recent times. The following excerpt comes from Thompson’s book in a section titled “ Traditions of the Ancient White People” :
Read more

A Large Turtle

Image
Large turtle tales are among my favorite types of cryptid encounters . Perhaps that is why I spent over a week on the outskirts of Roswell, New Mexico in 2022. I had hoped to catch a glimpse of the fabled large turtles the "size of a Volkswagen." (I did not.) Maybe the best turtle tale is the story of Oscar, the Beast of Busco. This enormous turtle, with a shell as big as "the top of a car" caused a ruckus in an Indiana town in 1949. In 1883, the Scientific American published a blurb about a large turtle—large is an understatement!—spotted at sea. I reprinted the entire text below: A Large Turtle "Captain Augustus G. Hall and the crew of the schooner Annie L. Hall vouch for the following: On March 30, while on the Grand Bank, in latitude 40° 10’, longitude 33°, they discovered an immense live trunk turtle, which was at first thought to be a Reptiles and Amphibians 535 vessel bottom up. The schooner passed within twenty-five feet of the monster, and those on bo
Read more

Paw Paw Tunnel

Image
The Paw Paw Tunnel in Oldtown, Maryland goes back to the days of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, better known as the C&O Canal. The C&O Canal operated from 1831 until 1924 along the Potomac River from Washington, D.C., to Cumberland, Maryland. The canal was primarily used to transport coal from the Allegheny Mountains. Building the 184-mile canal was a huge undertaking at the time; the lands to the west were remote and mountainous. A section of the canal, in Allegany County, Maryland, just across the river from present-day Paw Paw, West Virginia had to be bored through a mountain in order to bypass the Paw Paw bends, a 6-mile section of the Potomac with several horseshoe bends. Work on the tunnel began in 1836 and was completed in 1850. However, the tunnel was initially estimated to be complete in 1838. The work was slow-going and hazardous; using only hand tools and dynamite, works were only able to tunnel about 12 feet per day. Cave-ins were commonplace, as were injuries and
Read more

The "Mystery Noises" in Moodus

Image
When I arrived in Moodus, Connecticut in early-May 2022, I was surprised when a friend texted me an article from the New England Historical Society. The piece was titled “The Mysterious Moodus Noises of Connecticut,” and recounted the history of strange, unexplained noises that occur around the village of Moodus. The Moodus Noises I read the article at once. I couldn't believe that I had stumbled upon a place renowned for strange activity. According to the article: The Wangunk Indians had told the colonists of the fearful noises that they tried to appease. In fact, the Indians called the land around Mt. Tom “Machemoodus,” meaning place of bad noises. The settlers shortened the name to Moodus, now a village in East Haddam. Once Puritans moved to the area in the early-1700s, they heard the noises, too. And they, too, attributed the sounds to a supernatural source. The superstitious Puritans believed God was angry with them for their sins. Meanwhile, the local Indians believed the
Read more

Bigfoot Musings From the Lowcountry

Image
The Lowcountry of South Carolina is a great destination. The food and the beaches are amazing. Cities such as Beaufort and Charleston are full of history, stunning architecture, and antebellum homes with manicured lawns that embody the deep South. Large oak trees draped with Spanish moss form canopies along narrow streets and side roads. And of course, there is Bigfoot. Visits to Lowcountry I spent a week in the Lowcountry in the summer of 2020 and again in January 2022. But I was a good hour’s drive from Hilton Head; thirty minutes away from Beaufort; and around forty-five minutes from Charleston. I stayed at a campground “in the middle of nowhere.” The nearest town was Yemassee—a small community whose roads leading in were riddled with potholes the size of kitchen sinks. The point of this post is not potholes, Spanish moss, or antebellum homes—Bigfoot is the star here. As I usually do when I arrive in a new place, I began thinking of the elusive beast. I checked the Bigfoot Field Re
Read more