Black dog ghosts in popular culture

The British legend of the ghostly black dog has appeared many times in popular culture.

In the novel by Bram Stoker, when arriving at Whitby aboard the ship Demeter, Dracula takes the form of a big and ferocious dark dog. The barghest is part of Whitby folklore, and may well have been Stoker's inspiration.

Also inspired by this legend, the barghest also appears in the children's book The Whitby Witches by Robin Jarvis.

The barghest is depicted as a shapeshifting beast in Sojourn, written by R.A. Salvatore. Most of R.A. Salvatore's literary inspiration comes from the pen and paper RPG Dungeons and Dragons.

In Roald Dahl's The Witches, it is mentioned as always being male.

Comic book publisher Barghest Entertainment takes its name from the legendary demon-dog.

In the novel Forge of the Mindslayers by Tim Waggoner, a Barghest is described as a lupine beast with blue tinged fur, a 'goblin-ish' face, and human hands. It can shapeshift into a goblin.

In Chapter 63 of Theodore Dreiser's classic novel, An American Tragedy, he references the spectre adjectivally, saying, "And at one point it was that a wier-wier, one of the solitary water-birds of this region, uttered its ouphe and barghest cry, flying from somewhere near into some darker recess within the woods. And at this sound it was that Clyde had stirred nervously and then sat up in the car. It was so very different to any bird-cry he had ever heard anywhere."

Steven Erikson's epic fantasy series, the Malazan Book of the Fallen, features a nomadic warrior people called the Barghast. Any possible relation to the mythological canine, aside from the name, is unclear.

Neil Gaiman's short story, "Black Dog" also uses the legend as its sources material. In this story, the main character from Gaiman's American Gods is visiting a small English village when one of the residents becomes menaced by Black Shuck. This story deals heavily with the concept of black dogs as bad omens and hellhounds.

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