Melton Shock

The following is extracted from County Folklore: Suffolk (1893). ‘In Melton stands the ‘Horse & Groom’ inn – in the days of toll-bar gates (thirty years ago) occupied by one Master Fisher. It was a dark night when Goodman Kemp of Woodbridge entered the inn in a hurried frightened manner, and asked for the loan of a gun to shoot a ‘Shock‘, which hung upon the toll-gate bars. It was a ‘thing’ with a donkey’s head and a smooth velvet hide. Kemp, somewhat emboldened by the support of companions, sought to grab the creature and take it to the inn to examine it. As he seized it, it turned suddenly round, snapped at Kemp’s hand and vanished. Kemp bore the mark of the Shock’s bite upon his thumb to his dying day.'”  From Mr. Redstone. Told by Fisher, the innkeeper’s son, aged 70.