bargest

bargest, barguest. This is the name for a particularly alarming shape-changing bogey animal in the folklore of Yorkshire, Lancashire, and other northern areas, which might be encountered at stiles and in dark lanes, or near churchyards. Sometimes it was only heard, not seen; it howled and shrieked, and to hear it was an omen of someone's approaching death—possibly one's own. If visible, it might be ‘a frightful goblin with teeth and claws’, a headless man, a cat, a rabbit, or most often a Black Dog, whose coming would set all the real dogs in the district chasing after it and howling.

Bibliography

Thomas Wright , English Dialect Dictionary, s.v., and quotations given there;
Henderson , 1866: 239.