In the novel by Bram Stoker, when arriving at Whitby aboard the ship Demeter, Dracula takes the form of a big and ferocious dark dog. The barghest is part of Whitby folklore, and may well have been Stoker's inspiration.
Also inspired by this legend, the barghest also appears in the children's book The Whitby Witches by Robin Jarvis.
The barghest is depicted as a shapeshifting beast in Sojourn, written by R.A. Salvatore. Most of R.A. Salvatore's literary inspiration comes from the pen and paper RPG Dungeons and Dragons.
In Roald Dahl's The Witches, it is mentioned as always being male.
Comic book publisher Barghest Entertainment takes its name from the legendary demon-dog.
In the novel Forge of the Mindslayers by Tim Waggoner, a Barghest is described as a lupine beast with blue tinged fur, a 'goblin-ish' face, and human hands. It can shapeshift into a goblin.
In Chapter 63 of Theodore Dreiser's classic novel, An American Tragedy, he references the spectre adjectivally, saying, "And at one point it was that a wier-wier, one of the solitary water-birds of this region, uttered its ouphe and barghest cry, flying from somewhere near into some darker recess within the woods. And at this sound it was that Clyde had stirred nervously and then sat up in the car. It was so very different to any bird-cry he had ever heard anywhere."
Steven Erikson's epic fantasy series, the Malazan Book of the Fallen, features a nomadic warrior people called the Barghast. Any possible relation to the mythological canine, aside from the name, is unclear.
Neil Gaiman's short story, "Black Dog" also uses the legend as its sources material. In this story, the main character from Gaiman's American Gods is visiting a small English village when one of the residents becomes menaced by Black Shuck. This story deals heavily with the concept of black dogs as bad omens and hellhounds.
In Bethan White's novel Downward, the protagonist Chris is accompanied by a black dog that only he is able to see.
Film and TV
The Barghest is the main villain in the children's TV series Roger and the Rottentrolls, which is set in Troller's Ghyll.
The 1978 made-for-TV movie Devil Dog: Hound of Hell features a barghest named Lucky.
In an episode of the BBC drama series Dalziel and Pascoe, a public house situated on the North York Moors which the episode's plot revolves around is named 'The Barguest', and features a large black dog on its sign.
Barghests feature in:
BattleTech - as the name of a 'Mech.
Dark Conspiracy
Dungeons and Dragons (see Barghest (Dungeons & Dragons))
Exalted
HARP
Shadowrun
The Witcher
World of Darkness
Wraith: the Oblivion
In the Shadowmoor expansion of Magic: The Gathering, one of the creatures is called Hollowborn Barghest.
Barghests, or creatures similar to it, appear in:
Castlevania: Circle of the Moon
Chrono Trigger
Final Fantasy XII
Fire Emblem
Folklore
Icewind Dale II
Lord of the Rings Online
The Monster Rancher series
The Pokémon video game series. From the second generation, there were two Pokémon that seem to fit the description of a hellhound called Houndour and Houndoom. There is also a Pokémon based on a white barghest called Absol.
Shadow Hearts 2
Wild Arms 2, as a minor enemy faced inside the prison level.
The Witcher
Barghests appear in:
The song "Barghest" by Patrick Wolf
The song "Barghest vs. Aged.A" by psychedelic rock band of Arrowe Hill
The EP "The Barghest of Whitby" by doom metal band My Dying Bride, where one is depicted prominently in the album artwork.
The Black Dog of Bungay and Black Shuck both appear in “The Kettle Chronicles: The Black Dog”, a novel by Steve Morgan, former vicar of Bungay, set in 1577. According to the children’s book The Runton Werewolf by Ritchie Perry, Black Shuck is a Gronk, a race of friendly shape-shifting aliens, the ancestors of which were accidentally left behind on Earth when one of them suffered from stomach troubles. Hector Plasm: De Mortuis features a one panel picture and reference to Black Shuck. Black Shuck also makes an appearance in Mark Chadbourn’s trilogy The Age of Misrule and is mentioned in Philip Pullman’s Northern Lights.
The dog is the leader of a group of mythological characters in the 2000 AD series London Falling. An episode of the children’s documentary series Mystery Hunters investigated the case of Black Shuck.
British rock band The Darkness included a song entitled “Black Shuck”, which describes the beast, on their album Permission To Land.
Black Shuck also appears in the Supernatural: Origins comics.
Black Shuck is the subject of the musical drama "The Storm Hound" by Betty Roe and Marian Lines.
A dark hound named Black Shuck serves the champion of the Shadowdancers in the online role-playing game Lusternia.
Black Shuck appears as the hobgoblin Puck's pet/companion in the Sneigoski / Golden series, The Menagerie.
The 1998 film Black Dog, starring Patrick Swayze, has a major plot point involving the Black Dog legend.
Black Shuck is a Cerberus-type boss in the Final Fantasy XI assault mission "Better Than One."
Within the Harry Potter series, specifically the novel Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Harry repeatedly sees a large black dog, referred to as the "Grim". According to Sybill Trelawney it represents death incarnate, and she believes Harry is doomed now that he has seen it. It is eventually shown that shapeshifter Sirius Black is the physical black dog that he had been seeing.
The "Hellhound" episode of Lost Tapes may have been an allusion to the black shuck. In this incarnation, the character Nora states that if you see the black dog three times, you will die.
