#Lambton Worm

[atomic-chronoscaph]

The Lair of the White Worm - art by Pamela Colman Smith (1911)

[fhtagn-and-tentacles]

13 LAMBTOWN WORM

by Andréa Boloch

[jurakan]

Do you have a fun fact in these trying times?

Tell me, friend, do you know the story of the Lambton Worm? If not, then Today You Learned about it.

[This story is in, like, ALL the dragon books.]

The story goes that some time in the ages of the Crusades, the town of Lambton was doing its usual Sunday business of going to Mass–except for the young heir to the Lambton Estate, John Lambton, who was going fishing instead. He got a few disapproving looks from people on the way to church, but he kept fishing because he was a rebel like that. He had trouble catching actual fish, but as Mass was wrapping up, he caught something!

A worm that looked like the Devil.

Okay, so ‘worm’ in those days can also mean a serpent, and Wikipedia describes it as something eel-like. Just… he picked up something on his fishing line that was limbless, not that big, but ugly as all getout. John Lambton was freaked out by this, and he chucked it in the local well. Deciding this was punishment for his non-churchgoing ways, Johnny grows up, trying to forget about the worm. When he grows a little older, he even takes the Cross and goes on Crusade as penance.

Except the worm survived. And it grew down in that well, poisoning the water with its venom or perhaps its general ugliness. The worm eventually grows large enough to slither out of the well and starts to eat things–small animals, mostly. Then it starts drinking cows’ milk (which is a bad thing to feed dragons if you don’t want them to grow bigger), and THEN it gets big enough to start eating cows and small children.

This, as you may realize, is A Problem.

The people of Lambton, and its lord, realize that they can placate the thing by offering it milk and cows, but it keeps growing bigger, and they try to get people to come kill it. And of course knights come along and try to kill this dragon worm thing. It doesn’t work, though. Maybe they hack off a piece, but it grows back, and the worm wraps itself around a man in armor and squeezes him to death.

Finally, John Lambton, heir to Lambton, comes back from Crusade. He realizes what’s going on, and knows that it’s a problem he started in the first place, so he has to fix it. Though he sees that no one’s had much luck in killing it. So he goes to a local wise woman, and she tells him that he can kill the Worm, but first he has to make a special suit of armor, one with spearheads fused all over it. Then, when he chops it to bits, he must dump the remains in the river. And THEN, after the deed is done, he must kill the first living thing he sees. Otherwise, the house of Lambton will be cursed for nine generations.

Well, Johnny Lamb commissions the suit of armor, and then he tells his dad to arrange that when he’s done the deed, he’ll blow a horn, and so then a hunting dog will be released and John will kill it.

Lambton faces the Worm, which of course, wraps around him to constrict him. But it doesn’t work! Because his armor is covered in spikes! And so the worm pierces itself on his armor! And he has enough room to start chopping this thing to pieces. Then he throws those in the river, where the pieces are swept away before they can put themselves back together. 

[C.E. Brock's illustration.]

Lambton blows the horn to signal victory. But ohes noes! His father is so happy that he forgets to release the hound, and runs to his son and kills him. John Lambton obviously cannot go through with killing his father, so he tries to kill the hound anyway, but it doesn’t work to avert the curse. For nine generations, none of the Lambton heirs died a peaceful death in their beds.

And that’s the story of the Lambton Worm, friendo!

[John Dickenson Batten's illustration]

[a-book-of-creatures]

The Lambton Worm, by Stephen Cartwright.

From Dragons (Usborne Story Books, 1979).

[charliescreatures]

A dragon from Librum Prodigiosum! The Lambton Worm, from British mythology! Originating in a legend from county Durham- telling the story of John Lambton and his battle with the evil beast in the River Wear and his subsequent curse!

[dwollsadventures]

Hey, here's where Dirtifer came from. I was actually really surprised to see a dockalfer show up in Wizard School Mysteries Book 1, I think I designed him before the book was released? Related was my attempt to draw a Beelzebub to varying results.

Most of this page is dedicated to the knucker and Lambton worm. The knucker was designed after seeing the kettles and pot-hole lakes named after knuckers. It made me think of them as a type of pest which lodges themselves into these holes, with spikes to prevent people from removing them. Their ears also have long scales or hairs to mimic reeds. The Lambton worm was drawn to make it look a little more like an eft, or juvenile newt, which the worm was supposed to resemble.

Finally at the bottom, Drake lets his hair down, to the admiration of his friend. We'll see more of her on the next sketch page, but she's part of an extended friend group, a "TDG Junior" if you will. Fun facts: her name is Angel and she predates both Ariel and Drake!

[briefbestiary]

In the end, the worm was defeated in the river. John Lambton donned armor covered in spearheads, cutting it apart when it attempted to coil itself around him. Then the strong running waters of the river prevented the worm from pulling itself back together.

[spatheandspadix]

Illustration of the Lambton Worm by C. E. Brock from English Fairy and Other Folk Tales.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot since reading Poli and Stoneman’s 2020 paper about the link between fossil club mosses from ancient coal swamps and dragon lore.

Looking deeper into a few tales reveals their relationships to the plant fossils’ appearance as well as their locations. Ac- cording to lore, John Lambton yanks the Lambton worm from the Wear River on the end of a fishing line and flings it into a well, where it reaches enormous size [38]. Years later, pieces of the worm are hacked off in an effort to kill it, but it regenerates these parts and lives on. Lambton’s worm grows so large that it can wrap itself around a hill seven times, a feat that causes a (still-visible) circular indentation around Worm Hill, located near a documented fossil site. Eventu- ally, Lambton hacks the worm to pieces, which float down the Wear before the worm is finally torn completely apart, having impaled itself on Lambton’s armor. Note that Lamb- ton’s estate sits at the site of lead, coal and limestone mines that have operated for centuries. Interestingly, up until the seventeenth century, coal was believed to be a living thing with “special seeds for its reproduction and growth under the ground” [39]. Could the pieces of the Lambton worm that washed down the Wear River have been the coal-black, scaly fossils of Lepidodendron?

https://direct.mit.edu/leon/article/53/1/50/46847/Drawing-New-Boundaries-Finding-the-Origins-of

[artistrichardhfay]

Poem "The Lambton Worm" originally published Dec 2007 in the webzine Aphelion and also published Aug 2023 in Cosmic Journeys and Gothic Visions: A Speculative Poetry Collection.

Background illustration "The Lambton Worm" by Richard H. Fay.

The Lambton Worm

By Richard H. Fay

youthful roguery Holy Sabbath spent fishing strange evil hauled in

squirming eldritch worm a nearby well deep and dark fell catch discarded

brave crusading knight seven long years overseas folly forgotten

a growing menace wound three times around a hill ravenous devil

woolly flocks consumed every dairy cow drained dry countryside ravaged

diabolic beast severed pieces recombine immortal terror

the castle threatened costly daily ritual destitute estate

lordly dilemma wise-woman consultation clever solution

spike-studded armour bloody fight in the river the worm defeated

[blacjaq1]

[greenpanda-basicfakewitch]

The Lambton Worm | Myth

Can't believe I forgot this story, I should start putting in stories based on my own culture [Britain] than following the popular americans and anything thats common.

The legend of the Lambton Worm is believed to date from the 14th century, and the earliest published version of the legend was by Robert Surtees, the well-known Durham historian who recorded the traditional oral version of the legend as recounted by Elizabeth Cockburn of Offerton.

So the Lambton worm myth, was the story about a worm tossed into a well then suddenly grew into a large dangerous dragon. The same man responsible for creating the dragon has to slay it. But of course once he did and returned he had to slay the first thing he saw, and so he told his father to release the hounds so he would kill them on sight and not any loved one.

His father forgot, and so the man slayed the hounds instead and thus the family line were cursed.

[In depth source YES it's wiki, but I was a kid at primary school when I first heard the story and this seems accurate to me Source]

[drachenwiki]

If this was the Lambton worm, I'd add "curse for john lambton! curse for john lambton for Nine Generations!!!!"

The Dragon of Wantley,174

4engraving by John June

[bretwalda-lamnguin]

Maybe I've been thinking too much about Northumbrian worm myths but I wonder if Glaurung could have been tamed or at least appeased by giving him milk...

[nerdwatching]

Do you all want to see my OCs for a story I’ll probably never write?

Hope so!

(If you haven’t already guessed, I like Northern English folklore)

[autisticbillpotts]

whisht lads haad yer gobs I'll tell yous all an aaful story, whisht lads haad yer gobs I'll tell yous boot tha WERM

[ex0skeletal-undead]

Inktober 13 - Lambton Worm by Andréa Boloch