Encounter Atlas

Creature index / Dogmen and beasts

Barghest

Also called Barguest, Bargest, Yorkshire black dog, Troller's Gill barghest

A monstrous black dog of northern England, said to be an omen of death.

The barghest is a monstrous black dog of northern English folklore, with huge teeth and claws and fiery eyes. In some places the name means a shape-shifting ghost that can also appear as a headless man, a white cat or a rabbit. The name may come from 'burh-ghest' (town ghost) or a German phrase meaning mountain ghost.

Its most famous haunt is Troller's Gill, a narrow limestone gorge in the Yorkshire Dales. A ballad printed by William Hone tells of a man who went there to summon the barghest and was found dead with strange marks on his chest. Stories also place it in the snickelways of York, around Whitby, near Leeds, and near Darlington in County Durham.

Like other black dogs, the barghest is said to foretell a death, sometimes leading a howling procession of local dogs when an important person dies. It cannot cross running water. It is a close relative of East Anglia's Black Shuck.

What witnesses report

  • A huge black dog with saucer-like, fiery eyes
  • Rattling chains with nothing visible
  • Howling before a death
  • A wound from its paw that never heals

Famous cases

  1. 1830Ballad of the Troller's Gill barghest printed by William Hone
    Troller's Gill, North Yorkshire

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Related

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