Padfoot

The Padfoot is a spectral black beast of the West Riding of Yorkshire, especially around Leeds — a death-omen creature akin to the Barghest, named for the soft padding of its feet heard following the traveller on a dark road. It appears most often as a large shaggy black dog with broad glowing eyes, but it is a shape-shifter: it may show as a white dog, a woolly fleece rolling along the ground, or a donkey, and it drags a clanking chain.

To meet the Padfoot — or merely to hear its padding tread and the rattle of its chain behind you — was an omen of death in the household. It was as often invisible as seen, and was said to follow people home; some tales warn that to speak to it or strike at it brings its power down upon you, while leaving it be lets it pass. One of the classic Yorkshire 'black dogs', the Padfoot stands beside the Barghest and the Gytrash in the county's rich tradition of spectral, death-foretelling beasts of the road.