The following account was transcribed from a handwritten journal submitted to the North Yorkshire Folklore Society by the estate of one Thomas Farrow, a surveyor and amateur naturalist who vanished from his home in Pickering in the autumn of 1923. The journal was found in his study, open to this entry. The entry is undated, but marginal notes in a different hand — presumably made by the estate executor — indicate it was written approximately three days before Mr. Farrow failed to appear for a scheduled appointment and was subsequently reported missing. His body was never recovered.
HR
I saw the Black Dog on the moor above Levisham last Tuesday evening.
I had stayed too long at the survey site and found myself making the crossing in near-darkness, which I have done before without incident. The path is well-known to me. The moor in October has a particular quality of silence that I have always found clarifying rather than oppressive, and I was in no hurry.
It appeared on the path ahead of me at perhaps forty yards' distance.
I want to be precise about my state of mind at this moment: I was not frightened. I have encountered large dogs on the moor before. Farmers' dogs, strays, the occasional animal that has wandered far from its territory. My first thought was that this was such an animal — a large breed, black-coated, which had strayed.
The thought lasted for perhaps three seconds, until the animal turned and looked at me.
I am a methodical man. I deal in measurements and evidence. I will tell you what I observed as accurately as I am capable:
It was the size of a large calf. Perhaps larger. This alone is remarkable, but not beyond the range of certain breeds. The coat was black and absorbed the ambient light in a manner inconsistent with any fur I have observed. The eyes were the color of old copper — a reddish amber, but deeper than amber, with a luminosity that did not correspond to any available light source on that section of the moor.
It looked at me for a period of time I cannot accurately estimate. My perception of the duration at the time was approximately thirty seconds, though it may have been considerably less. It looked at me with an expression that I have struggled since to characterize, because attributing expression to an animal is not something I do lightly. The closest I can come is this: it recognized me. Not as a human being in a general sense, but as me specifically. As Thomas Farrow. As someone it had been expecting.
Then it left the path and moved across the moor with a speed and quietness that I will not attempt to describe, because to describe it accurately would be to describe something that should not be physically possible, and I have no interest in being thought a liar.
I completed the crossing. I went home. I told no one.
I am writing this account now because I have felt, in the three days since, that I am being prepared for something. Not frightened of it. Not anxious. Simply prepared, the way a man prepares for a long journey — quietly, methodically, making sure everything is in order.
The folklore says to see it is to die within the year. The folklore, in my experience, is conservative in its estimates.
I am recording this because someone should know. I am not afraid. I think, in some way I cannot articulate, that I have been known for a long time by something that waits on the moor at the end of things.
It was very large. Its eyes were the color of old copper.
I think I will go back.
HR
Mr. Thomas Farrow, born 14 March 1881, was reported missing 7 October 1923. No remains were found. The case was closed in 1931.