Church Grim
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The Church Grim or Kirk Grim is a figure from English folklore. The guardian of old churchyards in the form of a black dog, it protected the dead from the Devil, demons and other nefarious supernatural creatures. The dog was often seen on stormy nights and was regarded as a portent of death.
It has been surmised that the Church Grim is a folk memory of a sacrifice. It was believed in the past that the first burial in a churchyard would have to watch over the rest of the dead. A dog may have been buried first in place of a human. An old English tradition was the burial of a live dog in the floor of a newly built church. The phantom dog was supposed to guard the church and it's congregations.[citation needed]
Phantom black dogs are numerous in Britain, and almost every area has its own variant. Although not all of these are thought to be derived from a folk memory of a sacrifice, the practice was once widespread.
