Long Dog of River Road
It wasn’t often that a human body was found torn to shreds and severely lacerated, but it did happen every now and then. If the local police couldn’t solve the mystery, they might offer 'bear attack' as a possibility. Often the deaths went unexplained, except by those who knew of the horrible creature said to roam the woodlands of East Tennessee.
In many of these deaths, there were some common pieces of evidence: There were always very few signs of a struggle, as if the victim had been immediately overwhelmed and unable to fight the attacker. The scene of the attack also indicated that the attacker had slung and dragged the victim around in a circular pattern, in a violent rage of attack. The attack scene usually reeked of a terrible odor - an acrid, almost "sulfur-like" stench. Some say the odor was like that of highly concentrated skunk spray. If people had been anywhere nearby, there were usually reports of low, guttural, moaning sounds having been heard from somewhere in the woods during the night of the killing.
The threads of evidence in these killings matched tales of a mysterious creature sworn to have been seen by most of the people living in the valley, up and down along the River Road (now known as “Big Elm Road”). The creature was legendary even before the first white settlers moved into the area. Cherokee Indians called the creature “Oolonga-dagalla” (roughly translated as “spirit with knife teeth”), and knew it as a ghostly creature that roamed the river valley at night. Over time, the name was corrupted by white man into “Long Dog”. The name was however fitting to those who had seen it but escaped attack.
The creature loped when it ran, much like a wolverine does. That is to say, its leaping movement brought its hind legs up under its front legs and its back arched at each stride. It was a truly hideous sight to see it moving along like this, gaining on you as you tried to get away before it caught you. Also, the creature was quite long - some say as long as seven or eight feet. It had a dog-like face and a tail like that of a hound. It was said to have yellowish glowing eyes that were fiery looking in the night. Its fur appeared matted and oily, and tracks found along the riverbank showed great, long and sharp claws. Yet, even though signs and evidence ascribed to the creature were like those of a living beast, it was known to suddenly appear and disappear.
We knew of the Long Dog’s existence when we lived on the River Road in the late 1940s and early 1950s. I had heard the sounds of the creature at night, but my father would reassure me that it was just the pigs rooting out in the hog lot. My older brother - that was either brave or crazy enough to walk home from Kingsport late at night - sometimes told me of having seen, heard or even been confronted by the Long Dog. He swears he barely escaped the creature one night as he ran home. The creature would not come near homes and settlements, but would get as close as the nearest woods. Attacks occurred there - not on peoples’ properties.
One attack is said to have occurred at the mouth of the Arch (now commonly called 'Sensabaugh Tunnel' by thrill seekers). Present-day ghost story enthusiasts say that you can hear the screams of the man who was killed by Long Dog there, if you stop late at night in the stillness.
mo.;n134744 said:
Har hört talas om Mörkersuggan eller Svartsuggan av en kompis från Norrland. Oklart vad den gör, men verkar vara någonting som man skrämmer barn med där uppe.
Japp, men mörksuggan har inget med grisar att göra.
https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mörksugga
