A spectral black hound the size of a calf, with a single burning eye — or two, in the accounts that end worse. Shuck is the definite article of Britain's black dog tradition, and his founding document is unusually concrete: on August 4, 1577, during a violent storm, something entered St Mary's church in Bungay during the service, killed two parishioners at their prayers, and struck the church at Blythburgh twelve miles away the same morning, leaving scorch marks on the north door. The marks — 'the devil's fingerprints' — are still shown to visitors.
Sight of Shuck is traditionally said to promise death within the year, though the modern report file does not bear the arithmetic out; East Anglian folklore itself is split between Shuck the omen and Shuck the strangely protective road companion who paces lone walkers home.
Modern reports cluster on the A12 corridor and the coast path: padding footfalls beside the road, breath heard at hip height, and nothing there when the torch swings around.