 Local writer and broadcaster James Wentworth Day, who first related stories of the Shug Monkey in "Here Are Ghosts and Witches" (1954), described it as a curious variation of Black Shuck, while local folklorist Polly Howat suggests that both share common origins in Norse mythology.Local Police Constable A. Taylor, who heard the stories of the creature in his youth, described it to Wentworth Day as