Editor’s Note: Picktree is a small green area to the south of Washington in the North-East. The source is Ritson a native of the bishopric of Durham. The tale may date to the eighteenth century.

The Barguest used also to appear in the shape of a mastiff-dog and other animals, and terrify people with his skrikes (shrieks). There was a Barguest named the Picktree Brag, whose usual form was that of a little galloway, “in which shape a farmer, still or lately living thereabouts, reported that it had come to him one night as he was going home; that he got upon it and rode very quietly till it came to a great pond, to which it ran and threw him in, and went laughing away.’ (24)