Wessex Museums' Un/Common People folk story map notes that Wiltshire has more black dogs than any other English county, some of which will do harm and others good. Its Collingbourne Kingston story tells of a terrible robbery in which an old couple were murdered and their house set alight. People came from all around to find the robbers.
The robbers were chased for three nights. Exhausted, they had no choice but to enter Everleigh Woods, where nobody went at night, with good reason. As they ran through the trees they saw two burning green lights and may have thought they were the torches of their pursuers. They were not: a great black dog chased them and herded them into the path of those seeking them. The dog watched as the men were hauled away to be hanged, its eyes burning bright in the darkness.
The museum gives no date, names or documents for the robbery, so the tale is a folk story, not a verified case. It belongs to the Wiltshire black dog tradition, in which the dog sometimes acts as a guardian or an agent of justice, in contrast to the usual death omen. The pin is an approximate position in the woods between the two villages.
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