The black thing in the churches

01

The Encounter

Between nine and ten on Sunday morning, 4 August 1577, violent rain, lightning and thunder came over Bungay. The congregation was at service in the parish church, now known as St Mary’s. Fleming says the building seemed to quake and that the darkness became so complete that one person could not make out another except when lightning showed through it.

In that darkness, the account says, a dog-shaped presence of black colour ran down the body of the church. It passed between two people at prayer, who died where they knelt. Another man was seized across the back and left drawn together, though Fleming says he lived. A clerk clearing the gutter was struck down by thunder and escaped further harm.

The pamphlet then turns to Blythburgh on the same day. A thing of the same shape is said to have appeared upon the beam where the rood had once stood, swept down through the church, killed two men and a boy, burned another person’s hand and left others blasted. The account links the two churches. It does not describe a journey along the road between them.

02 / Historical context

First recorded account

Abraham Fleming’s pamphlet was printed in London in 1577, the year of the storm. It is therefore early evidence, but it is not a witness statement. Fleming says that he received the order of events and committed it to paper. The title likewise says the work was drawn into plain method from a written copy.

He was a Protestant religious writer and made the event serve as a warning of divine judgement. His repeated movement between report and sermon matters. The black dog belongs to what he says was reported. The conclusion that it was the Devil belongs to Fleming’s interpretation.

“a dog as they might discerne it, of a black colour”

Fleming, “The reporte of a straunge and wonderful Spectacle,” 1577

03

What the record supports

• A severe storm and a black dog-shaped presence are reported in a pamphlet printed in the same year.
• The pamphlet gives a date, a time window, two churches and distinct reports of death, injury and damage.
• Bungay and Blythburgh are joined by Fleming as events of the same day, but the two church accounts remain distinct.
• Fleming says his material came from a written copy and from those reported to be eyewitnesses. He does not identify those people by name.

04

Later accounts and changes

The creature has grown more definite with repetition. Fleming calls it a dog of black colour and then interprets it as the Devil in that likeness. He gives no size and no description of its eyes. He does not use the name Black Shuck.

Marks upon the stones and church door, together with damage to the clockwork, are not modern inventions. Fleming himself offered them as proof. Their presence in the early pamphlet establishes the age of the claim, not the cause or present identity of any surviving marks.

05 / Source audit

How this record was checked

These are the checks behind the dossier. They show what was inspected, what it establishes and where caution is still needed.