Spectral or death hounds, alone or in packs, are a common creature of the north European mythological landscape. The packs are part of a spectral hunt - but here we consider the solitary variety in the very particular form the tradition takes in Northern Europe and Scandinavia, specifically the English form. Although those individuals' distribution and habits can vary, spectral black dogs are so similar that they can safely be thought as individuals within the same closely-related family.

"A hound it was, an enormous coal-black hound, but not such a hound as mortal eyes have ever seen. Fire burst from its open mouth, its eyes glowed with a smouldering glare, its muzzle and hackles and dewlap were outlined in flickering flame. Never in the delerious dream of a disordered brain could anything more savage, more appalling, more hellish be conceived than that dark form and savage face which broke upon us out of the wall of fog"

The Hound of the Baskervilles
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Names

Aka: Black Dog, Black Angus, Gwyllgi, Spectral dog, Dog of Darkness, Hellhound (fromr the norse goddess Hel)

• In Suffolk the black dog becomes 'Old Shock' or 'Old Shuck', 'Black Shuck' (from the Old English scucca, meaning 'demon').
• In the Quantock Hills of Somerset the black dog was frequently seen and called the 'Gurt Dog'.
• Cornwall has various tales of the 'Devil's Dandy (or Dando) Dogs',
  Devon has the 'Yeth (Heath) or Wisht Hounds.
• Other local names include Barguest, Black Shag, Padfoot or Hooter.
  In West Yorkshire the common name is 'Guytrash'
• In Lancashire it is known as Trash, Gytrash or Skriker. The 'Trash' and 'Gytrash' names were reputed to have been derived from the splashing / squelching noises its great feet made as it padded over wet earth.
• Further afield, a particularly unpleasant phantom pooch frequented Peel Castle on the Isle of Man in the seventeenth century and was known as the Moddey Dhoo, or Mauthe Doog.
• In Ireland we hear of the Pooka.
• In Scotland they are called CuSith, which literally means "faery dog," or Barguest. The term 'Bargest' was believed by Sir Walter Scott to derive from the German 'Beir-Geist', meaning ghost of the beir or death bed.
• In Wales they are called Cwn Annw, where they are seen crossing moors and wastelands by night.
• In Germanic countries they are called by a name which translates as "Gabriel's Hounds”