Black Shuck's family tree is as strange and wonderful as you might imagine, with magical
branches spreading through time.
One of the most unusual tales associated with Shuck is that of the Faines, saucer-eyed
creatures roaming close to Norwich, calf-sized with glowing eyes. The earliest reports link
the Faines to Hethersett in South Norfolk.
Walter Rye, in Recreations of a Norfolk Antiquary (1920), wrote: "The Faines: These were
animals the size of calves with saucer eyes which frequented Hethersett. One of them kept
on Mill Road and another on Gravel Pit Lane. My informant met it 25 years ago. He saw it
going away, shedding light like a bicycle lamp."
Mill Road, now filled with houses, was sparsely populated in the late 1800s. Nearby, an old
gravel pit was worked before WWI and later used as a dump. Bill Morton recalled a hermit
living in a shanty there, hiding from the boys who visited.
Could these creatures be part of a larger number of wide-eyed beasts that roam East Anglia
alongside Black Shuck? Katherine Wiltshire's Ghosts and Legends of the Wiltshire
Countryside (1973) claims Norfolk witches could 'create' such creatures through
concentrated thought.
In the early 1990s, a man working at Brooks’ meat factory in Hethersett saw a large black
shape on Henstead Road. As he cycled, a huge rough-coated dog appeared beside him,
silent and disappearing into the darkness at a bend. Years later, at the Norwich Beer Festival, he met another man who recounted a similar sighting in Hethersett Memorial Playing Field.
As he walked, a large dog shadowed him, only to vanish when he investigated. Despite using
the park and road many times, he never saw it again. The legend of the Faines, like Black
Shuck, continues to intrigue.
Just what did the witness reveal at Norwich Beer Festival?
When the former Brooks’ meat factory employee discovered that he’d met someone who
had witnessed something similar to him, he asked for more details. The two volunteers at Norwich Beer Festival bonded over their beast sightings.
“He found out I came from Hethersett and, without telling him my story or even mentioning
large dogs in country lanes, he told me about an experience he had on Hethersett Memorial
Playing Field,” said the first witness.
“Late one night while coming through the footpath from Canns Lane, which leads on to the
park, he saw a large shape in front of him. He thought it was two boys, one on the other’s
shoulders playing a prank, but as he approached, he realised it wasn’t two boys but a huge
rough-coated dog.
“As he walked along the path heading towards the Recreation Road entrance the dog kept
with him about 50ft into the field. If he sped up, so did the dog. If he slowed down, so did
the dog.
“He went behind the pavilion but when he came out the other end, it was still there. When
he passed behind the brick toilet block it had vanished. He then, in his own words, ‘must
have been bloody mad’ because he went and looked for the dog. It had disappeared.
“The visibility was good, it was a clear night and believe me you can see a long way across
the park. He said if it had moved further out its shape would still have been visible, but it
had just vanished.
“He also said that he could see the dog’s head but it didn’t have the large saucer eyes that
it’s sometimes seen with. It has intrigued me ever since - I have used both the park and the
road many times since but have never seen it again.”
EXCITING FACT: Our witnesses that claim to have seen the Faines both have their own
section on the Hidden East Anglia website, with a credit to our tale and a mention on the
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