Originally Posted by
Trampshipman
I lived in Formby throughout my childhood and teens, in fact from around 1935 `til 1960. I lived close to a road which was and still is called RAVEN MEOLS LANE , this was said to have been the route taken by marauding Viking bands making their way inland from where they had landed on the coast. It is well known that Viking banners usually figured a `Raven`. Also, the word `Meols` actually means `banner`. So, `fortinian` is quite correct about the Viking connection. However, about your `black dogs` and the one that `knowhowe` claims to have seen in the sandhills, it is certainly not for me to speculate on what `knowehowe`may or may not have seen, but the said `black dog` was unheard of or never mentioned in the Formby I grew up in. My Mum was widowed my Dad being lost at sea. Throughout my child hood I loved the sea and its ships, and I used to take every possible opportunity to go off to the shore simply to watch the ships go by. [They were very numerous in those days ]. Throughout many years I spent thousands of hours roaming the sandhills of Formby after school and late into the night completely alone in daylight and darkness. [and weekends of course]. Throughout all those years I never saw or even heard tell of any `black dogs`. Formby folk in those days were really country folk and many of them quite superstitious, yet I never ever heard a single mention of `black dogs`. There was an old hermit called Billy Tasker who lived for very many years in a shack amidst the Formby sand dunes completely isolated and alone. If there had been any `black dogs` around he certainly would have known. I spent many many hours with him and he never made mention of such things. I can only now leave you to draw your own conclusions.
Regards,
Ken.
PS:- I also roamed Freshfield sand dunes and those of Hightown and Hall Road extensively as well as Formby, and knew them all like the back of my hand, day or night. No `black dogs` in those places either !!!
Trampshipman, thanks for taking the time to share your own local knowledge on the subject.
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It does seem odd that, having been born and raised in the area, you never encountered any local stories about Old Trash (or Guy Trash/Gytrash as mentioned Charlotte Brontë's
Jane Eyre). My original source for the tale came from Peter Underwood's 1984 book
This Haunted Isle and I came on Yo Liverpool having drawn a blank when searching for further Formby specific material concerning Black Dogs (which, as Fortinian and Oudeis point out, are a long standing staple of British folklore. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_dog_%28ghost%29).
knowhowe's experience was shocking but not overtly supernatural, so far as I remember him saying. It wasn't until he read my post that he made any connection any local legend. I found no accounts of the legend in Formby pre-dating Underwood's reference but he is generally considered to be a reliable source in matters of folklore and ghostlore (see
http://www.peterunderwood.org.uk/index.htm) so I pretty much took him at his word. Checking the entry I see that he may have got his data from a local newspaper sometime in late October... which might explain a thing or two. From the way you describe you're upbringing, it does seem highly unlikely that you would not have heard of such a legend if there was one in the area. Highly unlikely but, I am willing to believe, not entirely impossible.
merseywail, when I'm writing on matters of folklore, I always do my very best to back everything I'm saying up with as many footnotes and references as possible. I'm always open and honest about where I get my material from and I'm infinitely more interested in the cultural and historical routes of tales rather than turning them into a twist laden yarn. As a result, I kind of resent being lumped in with anyone else who happens to write on similar subjects without you're having actually read my book or any of my articles. I write fiction for a living, I write about local history and folklore as an entirely separate thing.
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