Jock Brocas On Spiritual Life: The Conqueror Worm: Lambton’s Serpentine Monster & Friends

The humungus ‘wyrms’ that once plagued ‘The Old North’

And the angels, all pallid and wan,

Uprising, unveiling, affirm

That the play is the tragedy, "Man,"

And its hero the Conqueror Worm.

From "The Conqueror Worm" by Edgar Allan Poe

The Lambton Worm is a legend from County Durham in North-East England in the United Kingdom, formerly part of the ancient kingdom of Northumbria.

The Worm appears

In medieval times (14th century), headstrong young landowner John Lambton skips church one Sunday to go fishing in the River Wear. On his way, he receives warnings from an old fellow (or a witch) that nothing good can come from his missing his hymns.

Lambton fails to catch anything until the church service ends, at which point he nets a tiny eel- or lamprey - with nine holes on each side of its salamander head, no bigger than his thumb. Some say it had legs, others not. The old man (or witch) returns, Lambton claiming he has "catched the devil" and slings it down a nearby well. The old man/witch proceeds to warn about the nature of the creature.

Years later, as penance for his wild-ish young ways, Lambton joins the Crusades - most likely those in either Tunisia or Lithuania. During his absence, the beast grows to a frightening extent and poisons the well. Livestock go missing and the huge, fully-grown worm coils itself seven times round Penshaw Hill (or alternatively Fatfield’s Worm Hill), terrifying the locals.

Worm Hill, Fatfield.

An investigation into the origins of Worm Hill, a sacred mound within a sacred and ritual landscape. Includes "The Legend of the Lambton Worm" DECODED, and the probable site of a previously undiscovered Roman Settlement.

www.washingtonlass.com

The worm makes its way to Lambton Castle, where Lambton’s elderly father, the Lord, pacifies the creature by daily offerings of the milk of nine cows - around twenty gallons. When villagers try to slay the worm they are easily killed. Even when they cut a piece off it, the creature just reattaches it.

Even armoured knights fare no better, and are all butchered.

The Worm defeated?

When John Lambton finally arrived home from the wars, the family estate is virtually destitute, milked dry, as it were. John resolves to end the menace, first consulting a local witch, who explains his sin of skipping church, birthed the worm. A bit drastic, in my opinion. On the hag’s advice, he covers his armour in spearheads and battles the worm in the River Wear, which passes the time wrapped around a great rock. The witch also tells Lambton that if he kills the beast, he must then exterminate the first living thing he espies, or otherwise the Lambtons will suffer a curse for the following nine generations, where none will die a peaceful death.

Lambton follows her instructions, and arranges with his dad that when he kills the worm, he will blow his hunting horn three times. His old man will then release his best hound, who will speed to John, who will then slay it and avoid the curse. Charming.

So, after a tough struggle, John eventually offs the dread worm and sounds the horn. But...

The Lambtons cursed?

John's elderly father is so excited by the death of the terror, he forgets to let the hound out, and instead runs as fast as he can to praise the lad. John can’t kill the old boy, so eventually slays the innocent dog, but too late - nine generations of Lambtons are thereby jinxed. This appears to have been true across at least the three Lambton family heads, adding to the legend.

The Penshaw Monument (officially the Earl of Durham's Monument) is a memorial in the style of the Athenian Greek temple of Hephaestus, constructed on Penshaw Hill, built between 1844 and 1845 to commemorate John Lambton, 1st Earl of Durham (1792–1840) and Governor-General of British North America.

The story of the Lambton Worm has proved potent enough to spawn a cottage industry of literature, movies, opera, and song.

Back in 1989, Wicker Man screenwriter Anthony Shaffer wrote the film script, The Loathsome Lambton, a direct sequel to his 1973 picture. The picture was sadly never produced, but a fan-made, fully casted audio drama adaptation of Shaffer's script was released in 2020.

Q The Winged Serpent (1982)

The Lambton Worm (1867) by Clarence M. Leumane

One Sunday morn young Lambton
Went a-fishin’ in the Wear;
An’ catched a fish upon his heuk,
He thowt leuk’t varry queer,

But whatt’n a kind of fish it was
Young Lambton couldn’t tell.
He waddn’t fash to carry it hyem,
So he hoyed it doon a well.

(Chorus)
Whisht! lads, haad yor gobs,
Aa’ll tell ye aall an aaful story,
Whisht! lads, haad yor gobs,
An aa’ll tell ye aboot the worm.

Noo Lambton felt inclined to gan
An’ fight in foreign wars.
He joined a troop o’ Knights
That cared for neither wounds nor scars,

An’ off he went to Palestine
Where queer things him befel,
An’ varry seun forgot aboot
The queer worm in the well.

(Chorus)

But the worm got fat an’ growed an’ growed,
An’ growed an aaful size;
With greet big teeth, and greet big gob,
An’ greet big goggley eyes.

An’ when at neets he craaled aboot
To pick up bits o’ news,
If he felt dry upon the road,
He milked a dozen coos.

(Chorus)

This feorful worm wad often feed
On calves an’ lambs an’ sheep
An’ swally little bairns alive
When they laid doon to sleep.

An’ when he’d eaten aall he cud
An’ he had had his fill,
He craaled away an’ lapped his tail
Seven times roond Penshaw Hill.

(Chorus)

The news of this most aaful worm
An’ his queer gannins on,
Seun crossed the seas, gat to the ears
Of brave an’ bowld Sir John.

So hyem he cam an’ catched the beast
An’ cut ‘im in three halves,
An’ that seun stopped him eatin’ bairns
An’ sheep an’ lambs and calves.

(Chorus)

So noo ye knaa hoo aall the folks
On byeth sides of the Wear
Lost lots o’ sheep an’ lots o’ sleep
An’ lived in mortal feor.

So let’s hev one to brave Sir John
That kept the bairns frae harm,
Saved coos an’ calves by myekin’ halves
O’ the famis Lambton Worm.

(Chorus)

Noo lads, Aa’ll haad me gob,
That’s aall Aa knaa aboot the story
Of Sir John’s clivvor job
Wi’ the aaful Lambton Worm.

But what was the origin of the legend?

Some posit that Dark Age Viking raiders in the area with their ‘fire wyrms’ were the basis for the story, although difficult to match with the much later setting of the tale. The Worms (Ormr) dragon bows of Viking longships add some additional evidence to the theory.

Others believe that some kind of beast actually existed in the area, as other examples were scattered throughout the Olde Northumbria. Perhaps an alligator/crocodile had been gifted by the Byzantines to the Kings of Northumbria’s personal menagerie, and had escaped, and then bred in the deep local rivers?

As Vikings and post-Norman Conquest Anglo-Saxons served as Varangian Guards to the Emperor of Byzantium, could there be some kind of connection there; the raiders keeping some exotic beast as a totem, who may have escaped?

Others still are convinced that the Great Worm is merely a salutary fictional lesson from the Christian hierarchy of the time to enforce church attendance.