my fave bit of black dog folklore is that in some folklore there is a belief that the first person buried in a cemetery stays there and doesn’t cross over and helps other spirits move on and protects them from evil spirits, now naturally people want to avoid this fate for their loved ones and themselves so they would sometimes bury a dog first and it would return in the shape of a big black dog and protect the newly dead from evil spirits and occasionally the living as well
Can’t believe Bram Stoker once sent a 2000-word fan letter to Walt Whitman which included his exact height, weight and how much he loved his poems and wanted to be friends with him, and that Whitman wrote back saying he liked his letter and hoped they could meet some day, how cute is that
And then he finally got to meet him and Stoker said “I found him all that I had ever dreamed of, or wished for in him” HOW CUTE IS THAT
bram stroker just mailed walt whitman his grindr profile just like that huh