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Peel Castle
Located on St Patrick's Isle, Peel, Isle of Man, the castle is reached over a causeway. The castle buildings are now in ruin but the outer walls are mostly intact. The first fortifications were built by the King Magnus Barelegs of Norway in the 11th Century. The Viking castle was made of wood, though there were earlier Celtic monastic structures on the island. The main round tower was originally part of the Celtic monastery.
The wooden fortifications were eventually replaced with sandstone. After the Vikings the castle was used by the Church but was abandoned in the 18th century. In 1860 the castle was extended with new defensive emplacements.
There is a giant legend attached to the castles construction. A giantess was carrying the one of the bigger sandstone blocks used to build the castle in her apron with some other stones. The apron strings snapped and the collection of blocks she had fell into the harbour.
The Moddey Dhoo or Black Dog is supposed to haunt Peel Castle. Leeds Castle in Kent is also haunted by a Black Dog. What these two fortifications have in common is the fate of Eleanor Cobham, Duchess of Gloucester and wife to the Lord Protector who was tried and convicted of witchcraft and treason circa 1440. She was held at Leeds for a short time prior to her trial and then incarcerated in Peel Castle for life where she spent her final fourteen years in captivity.
One legend of the Moddey Dhoo is based in the reign of King Charles II (1660-1685). The Moddey Dhoo would appear each night and sit by the fire in the guardroom. No one would walk around the castle alone at night for fear of this large black hound and even the patrolling armed soldiers went in pairs. One night a drunken young soldier declared that he would walk the castle passages alone to see if the hound was just a dog or perhaps the devil incarnate. He took the castle key to deliver it to the Captain of the Guard, the Moddey Dhoo got up from the fire and followed him. The soldiers screams shortly rang out around the castle. The young guard man returned alive but terrified and would not speak for the next three days. Then he died. It is possible he died of fright. From that day on, no guard saw the Moddey Dhoo again.
The Haunted Homes and Family Traditions of Great Britain by John Ingram (1897)
In no portion of the British kingdom are legends more rife, and superstitions more tenacious, than in the Isle of Man. Of the various romantic ruins which bedeck the island, and around which tradition has flung its ivy-like tendrils, none are more picturesque or more closely connected with mediaeval myths than Peele Castle. Among other marvellous stories told of the supernatural beings which haunt its precincts is the following, to be found in the pages of Waldron, whose account of the island is an inexhaustible mine of Manx legendary and folk lore.
"An apparition, which they call the Manthe Doog, in the shape of a shaggy spaniel, was stated to haunt the Castle in all parts, but particularly the guard-chamber, where the dog would constantly come and lie down hy the fire at candle-light. The soldiers lost much of their terror hy the frequency of the sight ; yet, as they believed it to be an evil spirit, waiting foi an opportunity to injure them, that belief kept them so far in order, that they refrained from swearing and discourse in its presence, and none chose to be left alone with such an insidious enemy. Now, as the Manthe Doog used to come out and return- by the passage through the church, by which also somebody must go to deliver the keys every night to the Captain, they continued to go together, he whose turn it was to do that duty being accompanied by the next in rotation.
"But one of the soldiers, on a certain night, being much disguised in liquor, would go with the key alone, though it really was not his turn. His comrades in vain endeavoured to dissuade him; he said he wanted the Manthe Doog's company, and he would try whether he were dog or devil ; and then, after much profane talk, he snatched up the keys and departed. Some time afterwards a great noise alarmed the soldiers, but none of them would venture to go and see what was the cause. When the adventurer returned, he was struck with horror and speechless, nor could he even make such signs as might give them to understand what had happened to him, but he died, with distorted features, in violent agony. After this none would go through the passage, which was soon closed up, and the apparition was never more seen in the castle."
"This accident happened about three-score years since," says Waldron, "and I heard it attested by several, but especially by an old soldier, who assured me he had seen it (i.e. the Manthe Doog), oftener than he had then hairs on his head."