Here, as at PIMPERNE, the ghost of a dog dragging a rattling chain is said to run invisibly through the village square, heading for the hills. According to an informant in about 1969:
The dog had apparently been well treated in its early life, but when its owner moved across the hill it was given to another. The other owner, who lived around the square, treated the dog badly and tied it with a chain. The dog tried many times to escape from its imprisonment, and one day it did. It ran through the square with its chain dragging behind it. Just as it rounded the corner a horse-drawn wagon came round the corner, trampling the dog before it had time to get away. The dog died, and there is supposed to be the ghost of this dog. It cannot be seen, but all that can be heard is the rattling of its chain as it runs to its old master.
Although this account makes no mention of the ghostly dog’s colour, the rattling chain links it to traditional descriptions of Black Dogs, which are sometimes rationalized as ghosts of dead dogs.
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SOURCE:
Haunted England : The Penguin Book of Ghosts – Written by Jennifer Westwood and Jacqueline Simpson –
Copyright © Jennifer Westwood and Jacqueline Simpson 2005, 2008