After the Black Dog

Will Halicks, a rising senior at UNC-Chapel Hill, will spend the summer traveling the British Isles, studying folklore as part of the Burch Fellows Program. He began crafting his proposal after a lecture by Jay Smith of UNC’s history department got him thinking about the role stories play in our societies.

The subject of his research this summer is Black Dog folk tales, one of the most widespread migratory legends in the United Kingdom, and (so it would seem) in the world. In addition to appearing in the local lore of nearly every major county in England, the stories have inspired generations of the country’s best and brightest, from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to Sir Winston Churchill, from Bram Stoker (a Dubliner who spent a great deal of time on the English coast) to Emily Brontë. He is filming a documentary to be screened on campus in the fall.

From his investigations, he hopes to discover patterns in the way folk traditions spread and pass from one generation to another, and also to establish what role they play in England’s social consciousness today, paying special attention to the ways in which folk legends have influenced the national character of the country through its literature. His itinerary will take him from shore to shore — feel free to take a look at his itinerary page for details — and put him in touch with people who know a great deal about the legend, and places that have been touched by it. He hopes to use the project as a springboard for further folklore studies.