chains-dragging-sound-heralds-approach

Cadejo · salience 0.85

“The core motif is a large, shaggy dog, often described as goat-sized or larger, with glowing red eyes, that stalks travelers, drunks, and other lone wayfarers on rural roads at night, typically making itself known first by the sound of dragging chains or heavy footsteps behind the traveler.”

Kludde · salience 0.85

“The figure takes a range of animal disguises, most often a black dog or horse but also cat, bat, frog, or wolf, and its approach is signalled by rattling chains and a flickering blue flame, a detail that links it to the wider family of will-o'-the-wisp and bogey lights reported on lonely roads at night. The most consistently reported behaviour has Kludde falling in behind a traveller walking home after dark, or a rider's horse, in the shape of a dog; it then leaps onto the victim's back and grows steadily heavier, driving them down into exhaustion or into a ditch or pond, sometimes with fatal intent and sometimes as a fright rather than a killing.”

Black Shuck · salience 0.7

“Its presence is often heralded by the sound of chains dragging along the ground or by a blood-curdling howl that seems to pierce through both the air and the mind.”

Buggane · salience 0.7

“One strand of Manx collection identifies the buggane outright with the cabbyl-ushtey, the Manx water horse, and the water association runs through its best-known haunts — the creature of Spooty Wooar, the big waterfall of the Patrick district, usually showed itself as a big black calf that crossed the road and leapt into the pool with a sound like shaken chains.”

Krampus

“His arrival is heralded by the clatter and clang of his chains and bells, a sound folklore holds is meant to frighten children into good behavior.”