Viborg Black Dog Sighting

Viborg used to be called Wibierga, “Holy Mountains”, because the hills here at the centre of the ancient road and ley line network in the heart of Jutland were sacred since stone age times. The “wi” itself lies just north of the present cathedral, and according to legend the Black Dog (various independent sightings in a string from Syvhøje, across Middle Jutland by way of grave mounds, cemeteries, places of pagan magic and ancient sacred sites, to the Wi at Viborg) runs around the northern edge of Viborg lake, along the old mediaeval Nørremøllevej (North Mill Rd.), through a city gate that is no longer there, and then up to the Wi by the cathedral, where it disappears into the ground at the stroke of midnight. It has done so since time immemorial, but in 2001 I decided to have a look myself: I took a second sighted woman with me to the Wi, and just before midnight she reported to see the Phantom Dog coming around the corner, up to the hill of the Wi – she said it stopped, seemingly baffled to be sighted again; all that I could see by then was a sprinkling of moon-lit dust inside a small “wind devil” (a mini-tornado) seeping up to the Wi and engulfing it at the exact stroke of midnight.

On the way back, by Nørremøllevej, I suddenly felt the hairs on my neck standing out, and I turned and looked – the woman said, without looking back: “Now you see it, too, don´t you?” Yes, I did: Across the road, what at first looked like a great black dog (something akin to the semi-wild dogs of the Danish stone ages) walked under a street light, and it suddenly looked at me, eyes and mouth seemingly lit from inside by green light, pointed ears and a ridge of harsh hairs on its back; parts of the body came and went with fluorescent green shimmers. Then it disappeared into the darkness beyond the light.

I am a Danish theologian, yet I have to admit that there are more things between heaven and earth … the Black Dog of Viborg takes it on trips, independently of how man sights it or disbelieves in it. Every night it runs along the same route, to the Wi at the center of the ley lines, perhaps as guardian of the sanctum that might come to light, if you removed the cathedral?