Exactly what the title says it is.
This is adapted from Monsters and Villains of the Movies and Literature by Gerrie McCall, Dragons: Fearsome Monsters from Myth and Fiction by Gerrie McCall, and Mythical Monsters by Chris McNab.
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MOUTH: The teeth are hideously long and sharp, and foul saliva reeking of sulfur may drool from the beast's jaws. CLAWS: These spring viciously from huge paws that make no sound as the monster lopes along. The paws also leave no prints, even in the softest soil. EYES: Some report eyes glowing with evil; others tell of terrible empty black pits. COAT: Blacker than night, this doesn't gleam in the moonlight like the coat of a living dog.
Folklore has it that if you see a phantom hound with a black coat and blazing eyes at night, bad luck or even death is close at hand. This huge dog has demonic red eyes, and it appears only at night, terrifying lone travelers. It is said that you will feel an unnatural chill before you see it appear. Tales of black dogs are especially rife in Britain, though some experts think Viking raiders brought these stories from Scandinavia. The dogs are often linked with churches. A black dog that visited the church of Blythburg in Suffolk in 1577 killed three people. Black dog stories influenced Arthur Conan Doyle when he wrote his Sherlock Holmes story, The Hound of the Baskervilles.
A man walking home one evening takes a shortcut along a clifftop path. He doesn't believe the local stories about a black dog. As he walks, a mist descends and he starts to feel cold- unnaturally so. Though uneasy, he presses on. Suddenly, he comes face-to-face with a monstrous, ghostly hound, its eyes burning with an unearthly fire. The man runs in a blind panic-and plunges over a cliff, clutching vainly at a tussock of grass as he falls screaming to his death.
DID YOU KNOW?
The earliest known report of a black dog was in France in AD 856, when one materialized in a church even though the doors were shut. The church grew dark as it padded up and down the aisle, as if looking for someone. The dog then vanished as suddenly as it had appeared.
In Missouri in the USA, a hunter once threw an ax at an enormous black dog. The ax passed right through the beasts ghostly body.
