Encounter dossier · Cambridgeshire

The dog buried with honour

A great black dog is said to have defended a young woman beside the mere. Both dog and attacker died, and the dog alone was given an honourable burial.

Date: Set before the Reformation; published 1963
Location: Littleport mere and the Bulldog Bridge tradition, Cambridgeshire
Record type: Place tradition
Entry type: Place tradition
Principal source: Tales from the Fens
Names and aliases: Fen black dog · Black Shuck (possible, unsettled)
Reported behaviour: Protective; killed in the struggle
Source status: Book and chapter identified; original passage sought
Identification: Fen black-dog tradition; Shuck identity possible, not settled

The Encounter

This is not the drowned master's dog of the Littleport road. The story is set before the Reformation, when a young woman went to gather wild mint beside a mere near Littleport. A friar came upon her and attacked her.

A great black dog intervened. The struggle ended with both dog and friar dead. The local men cast the friar into the mere and buried the dog with honour. Later tellings say the dog's presence remained about the place.

The moral distinction is unusually clear within the tale. The black hound is neither omen nor pursuer. It acts, suffers and is remembered as the defender. Whether this dog was locally called Shuck in the earliest telling cannot yet be established from the uninspected page.

02 / Historical context

First recorded account

The story appears as ‘The Legend of the Bulldog Bridge’ in W. H. Barrett's Tales from the Fens, edited by Enid Porter and published in 1963. The book and chapter have been identified, but the complete chapter has not yet been available for direct inspection.

Later summaries preserve the mint-gathering woman, the friar, the defending dog and the different treatment of the two bodies. They are useful leads, but they cannot settle Barrett's precise wording, the exact place or the name originally used for the dog.

What the record supports

A distinct Littleport tale of a great black dog was published by W. H. Barrett in 1963.
The published chapter is called ‘The Legend of the Bulldog Bridge’.
The supported outline is of a dog defending a young woman from a friar and dying in the struggle.
The account belongs to the protective strand of East Anglian black-dog tradition.

QuestionEarliest recordReading

SettingA mere near Littleport; Bulldog Bridge in the chapter titleExact site pending the original page

DateBefore the Reformation within the storyNarrative setting, not a dated witness event

ConductDefends a young woman from an attackerProtective action central to the tale

OutcomeDog and friar both die; dog buried with honourPreserved in later summaries

NameGreat black dogBlack Shuck name not yet confirmed in Barrett's passage

Later accounts and changes

The two Littleport dogs must remain separate. One waits for a drowned master upon the Ouse road. This one intervenes beside a mere and is buried with honour.

The title links the tale with Bulldog Bridge, but the missing chapter prevents a more exact map point. The marker is therefore broad.

Calling the defender Black Shuck may prove right, but the archive will not make that identification until Barrett's wording or an earlier local source has been read.

Merged with the drowned-master dog

Modern summaries

Do not combine the two Littleport accounts

Exact bridge location

Chapter title only

Keep the marker broad until the page is read

Black Shuck identity

Later regional classification

Possible, not yet established

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.

Walter Henry Barrett, Tales from the Fens

The 1963 book and its chapter ‘The Legend of the Bulldog Bridge’ have been identified.

A separate dossier is justified, but its source status remains working.

Later Littleport place histories

They preserve the same protective outline but do not reproduce a dependable page reference.

Only the shared outline is admitted; exact wording is withheld.

06 / Sources

Sources for this encounter

The book's publication details and chapter title are confirmed. The full original passage remains the chief missing link, so later summaries are used only for the guarded outline.

01 / Earliest printed source presently identifiedBook and chapter identified; original passage not yet inspected

Tales from the Fens

Walter Henry Barrett, edited by Enid Porter. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1963.

Chapter titled ‘The Legend of the Bulldog Bridge’; relevant pages still to be inspected.

Held or supplied by: Google Books bibliographic record
Rights note: Copyrighted work. Bibliographic details only are linked; no text or image is reproduced.

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