The Spectral Bulls of England

I came across the story of the Black Bull of Mylor while researching cryptids, and got instantly drawn into the story. Myths and folk legends are pretty common around here, and, after researching I found that cryptids are actually a lot more common in the British Isles than I originally thought.

Now, the bulls aren’t often referenced (in fact, I’ve been trying and failing to find much to reference here as our folklore isn't interwebbed well it seems), and seem to be a mixture of paranormal, phantom and cryptid which fascinates me. But at the end of the day, spectral bulls are in the same boat as spectral dogs, so I'm posting here in crypto' rather than paranormal, even if it is a bit of a grey area...

First of all, the word ‘Taroo’ and derivatives of such nature is the old English word for ‘bull’.

So, we’ll start at the beginning with the Black Bull of Mylor
This is a tale from Cornwall, which is located right at the bottom of the UK next to the sea; where the bull is said to haunt a parish named Mylor. The bull has ‘fiery red eyes’ and is reported to breathe fire. The tale itself was told by a man named Paul White (Classic Cornish Ghost Stories, 1994) who recounts a tale told in 1928 by a man of the parish to W D Watson (Old Cornwall 1:7 1928) (complicated, I know, but these things tend to be spread via word of mouth).

An old lady had told the story when the man was a child, and he claimed still to remember it in detail to that day. Two coastguards had been out walking towards Trefusis Point when a bull came charging towards them, roaring and breathing fire out of it’s nostrils. Naturally, they were terrified and shot at it, but it didn’t make a difference to it’s charge, and it continued on towards the houses which apparently ‘shook’ as it passed.

Watson asks at the end of the recount whether this actually happened or whether it was an urban legend, and in the quote (Ref this article for most of the thread) he mentions another list of bulls around the UK.

There is another tale of a black bull in Cornwall, which suggests that if a certain logan stone (a stone which is balanced in such a way that when you touch them, they rock) at midnight, a black bull will appear.

Sticking with Cornwall, the Taroo Ushtey is mentioned in The Fate of the Dead, a study by Theo Brown in 1979. A lady named Miss Courtney accounts how a ghost of a man who hung himself actually appeared at night along the lane as a bull and a chariot.

Now, moving elsewhere in Britain to The Isle of Man and the Taroo-Ushtay.
This guy is said to be a ‘water-bull’ due to his appearance and disappearances of the creature into bodies of water. This sort of fits, due to the it inhabiting an island.

Some of the numerous stories include a farmer who had lost some cattle, and placed a man on watch who saw the bull in amongst them, and so set a party of men to kill the bull, but it managed to get away by diving under the surface of a river.
A man and his father also saw the ‘beast’ (which also has flaming eyes) crossing a road, and the father ‘broke his walking stick’ over it’s back, it was that unconcerned by his presence. The mans brother (family affair?) also claims to have seen the water-bull in with his cattle which was chased away by the herd’s bull before diving into water and disappearing.

This bull, to me, seems more docile and ‘laid-back’ than the phantoms of Cornwall and more of an actual animal or cryptid than hauntings, due to the physical contact. It also seems to like playing with other cows more than scaring people, which is kinda nice.

Reference Isle of Man Heritage

The last specific bull legend which I’m going to reference leads us to Jersey (known for its cattle) and the Bull of St Clement
Fishermen tell the tale of this bull stamping round the rocks at low tide with an almighty roar, and scaring people so much that they refuse to venture down to the beach.

Now, this story is a bit pointless, really, because they went searching for the bull and found eroded rocks forming a pipe draining into a pool at low tide. They filled the pipe in, and the roar was gone – leading to the end of this bull’s legend.

Reference, BBC 2003

See, I love this sort of thing. I love the mystery of it and the fear and, you know the big back bull with flaming eyes and fire breathing nostrils. I also like cows, which probably helps. But something usually so docile and so British turned into a phantom appearing at night and terrifying people sucks me in.

But I tell you what, if I was to meet one, I’d say I’d rather be on the Isle of Man than Cornwall…

Thanks for reading!

Last year whilst visiting friends in Anglesey. I was chatting to one of my friends and he mentioned a bull in a local story, not sure if it was the same story. The Anglesey bull. Im sure he said it was a red bull and not black. Thanks for the interesting post.