{
  "title": "THE BLACK DOG OF HERGEST",
  "category": "[RADIO-SCRIPT]",
  "article": "Every shire and county in England has its share of local legends and spectral spottings, but the\nfolklore surrounding the Black Dog of Hergest (pronounced “ar-gyst”) has acquired a special place\nin the nation’s folklore due to its being claimed by many sources as the inspiration for Sir Arthur\nConan Doyle’s The Hound of the Baskervilles.\n[Herefordshire Gazetteer] “Near Kington in NE Herefordshire, a long rugged ridge famous in\nlocal folklore for its legendary Black Dog, generally believed to be the shape-shifted form of 16th\nCentury local thug, Black Vaughan. The Black Dog of Hergest is also believed to have been the\nproto-type for the Hound of the Baskervilles as Conan Doyle is known to have stayed at nearby\nHergest Hall shortly before he wrote the novel. To meet the Black Dog was locally regarded as an\nomen of death. (Hergest is pronounced as “Argist” with a hard ‘g’.)”\n[BBC Wales] “Was Arthur Conan Doyle inspired to write his famous novel after staying at\nBaskerville Hall in Clyro, Hay-on-Wye? Some say ‘The Hound of the Baskervilles’ is based on the\nlocal legend of ‘The Black Dog of Hergest’ which Doyle heard while staying in Clyro. The book\nitself is set on Dartmoor.”\n[The Independent, August 25, 1989] “A mysterious animal is running amok near the village\nfrom which Sir Arthur Conan Doyle got his inspiration for his story ‘The Hound of the\nBaskervilles’, writes David Thomas. Dozens of sheep have had their throats ripped out on\nfarmland a few miles from Powys village Clyro… Conan Doyle wrote the ‘Hound of the\nBaskervilles’, which he set in Dartmoor, after hearing the tale of ‘The Black Dog of Hergest’ while\nstaying twelve miles from Clyro. Pamela Harnsworth, Landlady of the ‘Baskerville Arms Inn,’\nClyro said, ‘At least two people have seen it. It’s bigger than a fox and dark in color. Many think\nit’s a large dog.’ Traces of the animal, such as a footprint, have not been found… A Dyfed-Powys\nPolice spokesman said, ‘As unlikely as it seems something appears to be going on out there.’”\n[Bob Bibby, Walking the Offa’s Dyke Path] “Conan Doyle himself said that the idea for the\nBaskerville hound came from a golfing trip he  made to Cromer in Norfolk with a friend. When a\nstorm drove them indoors, the friend entertained Doyle with tales of a phantom dog called Black\nShuck, which allegedly haunted the local countryside.\n“…there is a legend in Kington about Thomas ‘Black’ Vaughan of Hergest whose ghost allegedly\ntormented the inhabitants of the town… Black Vaughan’s dog allegedly continued to haunt the\nterritory its master had once operated in. And it is this Black Dog of Hergest which Conan Doyle\nwas told about when he was staying at nearby Clyro Court with one Thomas Baskerville, whose\nfamily had lived there for centuries.\nIt is also likely that Doyle was familiar with W. S. Symonds’ 1881 historical novel Malvern Chase\nand its ninth chapter—co-titled “The Shadow Hound”—in which the Yorkist narrator visits\n“Black” Vaughan at the Grange at Hargest  and passes a harrowing night in a chamber haunted by\nthe Black Dog.\n“I could not have been asleep above a quarter of an hour when I was awakened by something\nmoving at the foot of my bed, and, starting up, I saw the figure of an enormous black boar-hound\nwith glaring eyes and a most savage expression, making as if he were about to spring upon the\nbed… …eyes which flamed like torches… I was about to shout for aid, when gradually the form of\nthe animal faded away…\n“I related to him [Robin] my adventures, when he exclaimed, ‘By heavens! Then you have seen\nthe black dog of Hergest!’ In replay to my inquiries as to what he referred to, he said that it was a\nstrange tale and appertained to an ancestor of the Vaughans, adding that the house must have\nbeen full of guests to overflowing before the host of Hergest would have put a guest to sleep in the\nchamber of the ‘shadow hound’!”\n[Jennifer Westwood] “Black Dogs commonly haunt lanes, footpaths, bridges, crossroads and\ngateways—all points of transition, from ancient times held to be weak spots in the fabric dividing\nthe mortal world from the supernatural.”",
  "origination": "",
  "duration": "",
  "personnel": "",
  "extant_recordings": "",
  "chronology": "(MIDLAND REGIONAL PROGRAMME—BBC)\n[Monday—8:00-8:45 PM]\nOctober 22, 1934\n“The Black Dog of Hergest”\n[“…a dramatization of a Herefordshire folk-tale…”]\nSCRIPT: Helen Enoch.\nPERSONNEL: Martyn C. Webster (producer).\nCAST: Godfrey Baseley, John Bentley, Hilda Birch, Alfred Butler, Helen Enoch,\nDenis Folwell, Mabel France, Gladys Joiner, John Lang, Nita Valerie.\n[Monday—8:15-9:00 PM]\nJanuary 7, 1935\n“The Black Dog of Hergest”",
  "sources": "",
  "gallery": "",
  "images": []
}