Lambton Worm
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The Lambton Worm is a
legend A legend is a Folklore genre, genre of folklore that consists of a narrative featuring human actions, believed or perceived, both by teller and listeners, to have taken place in human history. Narratives in this genre may demonstrate human valu ...
from County Durham in
north-east England North East England is one of nine official regions of England at the first level of ITL for statistical purposes. The region has three current administrative levels below the region level in the region; combined authority, unitary authority ...
in the United Kingdom. The story takes place around the River Wear, and is one of the area's most famous pieces of
folklore Folklore is shared by a particular group of people; it encompasses the traditions common to that culture, subculture or group. This includes oral traditions such as tales, legends, proverbs and jokes. They include material culture, ranging ...
, having been adapted from written and
oral tradition Oral tradition, or oral lore, is a form of human communication wherein knowledge, art, ideas and cultural material is received, preserved, and transmitted orally from one generation to another. Vansina, Jan: ''Oral Tradition as History'' (1985 ...
into
pantomime Pantomime (; informally panto) is a type of musical comedy stage production designed for family entertainment. It was developed in England and is performed throughout the United Kingdom, Ireland and (to a lesser extent) in other English-speaking ...
and song formats.


The legend

The story revolves around John Lambton, an heir of the Lambton Estate, County Durham (now in
Tyne and Wear Tyne and Wear () is a metropolitan county in North East England, situated around the mouths of the rivers Tyne and Wear. It was created in 1974, by the Local Government Act 1972, along with five metropolitan boroughs of Gateshead, Newc ...
), and his battle with a giant
worm (dragon) Dragons are present in Germanic mythology and folklore, where they are often portrayed as large venomous serpents. Especially in later tales, however, they share many common features with other dragons in European mythology. Origin, appearanc ...
that had been terrorising the local villages. As with most myths, details of the story change with each telling.


Origin of the worm

The story states that the young John Lambton was a rebellious character who missed church one Sunday to go fishing in the River Wear. In many versions of the story, while walking to the river, or setting up his equipment, John receives warnings from an old man (or a witch – depending on who tells the story) that no good can come from missing church. John Lambton does not catch anything until the church service finishes, at which point he fishes out a small
eel Eels are ray-finned fish belonging to the order Anguilliformes (), which consists of eight suborders, 19 families, 111 genera, and about 800 species. Eels undergo considerable development from the early larval stage to the eventual adult stage ...
- or
lamprey Lampreys (sometimes inaccurately called lamprey eels) are an ancient extant lineage of jawless fish of the order Petromyzontiformes , placed in the superclass Cyclostomata. The adult lamprey may be characterized by a toothed, funnel-like s ...
-like creature with nine holes on each side of its
salamander Salamanders are a group of amphibians typically characterized by their lizard-like appearance, with slender bodies, blunt snouts, short limbs projecting at right angles to the body, and the presence of a tail in both larvae and adults. All t ...
-like head. Depending on the version of the story, the worm is no bigger than a thumb, or about long. In some renditions it has legs, while in others it is said to more closely resemble a snake. At this point, the old man returns, although in some versions it is a different character. John declares that he has "catched
aught "Zero" is the usual name for the number 0 in English. In British English "nought" is also used. In American English "naught" is used occasionally for zero, but (as with British English) "naught" is more often used as an archaic word for nothing. "N ...
the
devil A devil is the personification of evil as it is conceived in various cultures and religious traditions. It is seen as the objectification of a hostile and destructive force. Jeffrey Burton Russell states that the different conceptions of t ...
" and decides to dispose of his catch by discarding it down a nearby well. The old man then issues further warnings about the nature of the beast. John then forgets about the creature and eventually grows up. As a penance for his rebellious early years, he joins the
Crusades The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and sometimes directed by the Latin Church in the medieval period. The best known of these Crusades are those to the Holy Land in the period between 1095 and 1291 that were in ...
. Because the story is often said to have taken place in the 14th century, he likely fought in the
Barbary Crusade The Barbary Crusade, also called the Mahdia Crusade, was a Franco- Genoese military expedition in 1390 that led to the siege of Mahdia, then a stronghold of the Barbary pirates in Hafsidi Ifriqiya (geographically corresponding to modern Tunisia ...
or
Lithuanian Crusade The Lithuanian Crusade was a series of economic Christian colonization campaigns by the Teutonic Order and the Livonian Order under the pretext of forcibly Christianizing the pagan Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The Livonian Order occupied Riga in ...
.


The worm's wrath

Eventually, the worm grows extremely large and the well becomes poisonous. The villagers start to notice livestock going missing and discover that the fully-grown worm has emerged from the well and coiled itself around a local hill. Earlier, and local, versions of the legend associate the hill with Worm Hill, in
Fatfield Fatfield is an area of Washington, Tyne and Wear, England. The southern part of the village by the River Wear is popular for country walks and the three public houses and working men's club on the banks of the river. The site of the original vil ...
. In most versions of the story, the worm is large enough to wrap itself around the hill seven times. It is said that one can still see the marks of the worm on Worm Hill. However, in the later song the hill is
Penshaw The village of Penshaw , formerly known as ''Painshaw'' or ''Pensher'', is an area of the metropolitan district of the City of Sunderland, in Tyne and Wear, England. Historically, Penshaw was located in County Durham. Name and etymology The ...
Hill on which the
Penshaw Monument The Penshaw Monument (officially the Earl of Durham's Monument) is a memorial in the style of an ancient Greek temple on Penshaw Hill in the metropolitan borough of the City of Sunderland, North East England. It is located near the village of ...
now stands. The worm terrorises the nearby villages, eating sheep, preventing cows from producing milk, and snatching away small children. It then heads towards
Lambton Castle Lambton Castle stands above Chester-le-Street, County Durham and is a stately home, the ancestral seat of the Lambton family, the Earls of Durham. It is listed in the mid-category of listed building, Grade II*. History Largely constructed a ...
, where the Lord (John Lambton's aged father) manages to sedate the creature in what becomes a daily ritual of offering the worm the milk of nine good cows – twenty gallons, or a filled trough. A number of brave villagers try to kill the beast, but are quickly dispatched. When a chunk is cut off the worm, it simply reattaches the missing piece. Visiting knights also try to assault the beast, but none survive. When annoyed, the worm uproots trees by coiling its tail around them, then creates devastation by waving around the uprooted trees like a club.


The vanquishing of the worm in the story

After seven years, John Lambton returns from the Crusades to find his father's estates almost destitute because of the worm. John decides to fight it, but first seeks the guidance of a wise woman or
witch Witchcraft traditionally means the use of magic or supernatural powers to harm others. A practitioner is a witch. In medieval and early modern Europe, where the term originated, accused witches were usually women who were believed to have us ...
near
Durham Durham most commonly refers to: *Durham, England, a cathedral city and the county town of County Durham *County Durham, an English county * Durham County, North Carolina, a county in North Carolina, United States *Durham, North Carolina, a city in N ...
. The witch hardens John's resolve to kill the beast by explaining his responsibility for the worm. She tells him to cover his armour in spearheads and fight the worm in the River Wear, where it now spends its days wrapped around a great rock. The witch also tells John that after killing the worm he must then kill the first living thing he sees, or else his family will be cursed for nine generations and will not die in their beds. John prepares his armour according to the witch's instructions and arranges with his father that, when he has killed the worm, he will sound his
hunting horn A horn is any of a family of musical instruments made of a tube, usually made of metal and often curved in various ways, with one narrow end into which the musician blows, and a wide end from which sound emerges. In horns, unlike some other br ...
three times. On this signal, his father is to release his favourite hound so that it will run to John, who can then kill the dog and thus avoid the curse. John Lambton then fights the worm by the river. The worm tries to crush him, wrapping him in its coils, but it cuts itself on his armour's spikes; the pieces of the worm fall into the river, and are washed away before they can join up again. Eventually, the worm is dead and John sounds his hunting horn three times.


The Lambton curse

Unfortunately, John's father is so excited that the beast is dead that he forgets to release the hound and rushes out to congratulate his son. John cannot bear to kill his father and so, after they meet, the hound is released and dutifully dispatched. But it is too late and nine generations of Lambtons are cursed so they shall not die peacefully in their beds. Thus, the story ends. This curse seems to have held true for at least three generations, possibly helping to contribute to the popularity of the story. *1st generation: Robert Lambton, drowned at Newrig. *2nd: Sir William Lambton, a Colonel of Foot, killed at
Marston Moor The Battle of Marston Moor was fought on 2 July 1644, during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms of 1639 – 1653. The combined forces of the English Parliamentarians under Lord Fairfax and the Earl of Manchester and the Scottish Covenanters un ...
. *3rd: William Lambton, died in battle at
Wakefield Wakefield is a cathedral city in West Yorkshire, England located on the River Calder. The city had a population of 99,251 in the 2011 census.https://www.nomisweb.co.uk/census/2011/ks101ew Census 2011 table KS101EW Usual resident population, ...
. *9th: Henry Lambton, died in his carriage crossing Lambton Bridge on 26 June 1761. (General Lambton, Henry Lambton's brother, is said to have kept a horse whip by his bedside to ward off violent assaults. He died in his bed at an old age.)


The song

The story was made into a song (
Roud The Roud Folk Song Index is a database of around 250,000 references to nearly 25,000 songs collected from oral tradition in the English language from all over the world. It is compiled by Steve Roud (born 1949), a former librarian in the London ...
#2337), written in 1867 by C. M. Leumane, which passed into oral tradition and has several slightly different variants (most notably the use of "goggly" or "googly" eyes meaning bulging and searching, a term formerly widely used on Wearside). It features several words only found in
Northumbrian dialect The Northumbrian dialect refers to any of several English language varieties spoken in the traditional English region of Northumbria, which includes most of the North East England government region. The traditional Northumbrian dialect is a ...
. \relative c'' Tune from Tyne Pantomime 1867


Comics and literature

Bram Stoker's 1911 novel ''
The Lair of the White Worm ''The Lair of the White Worm'' is a horror novel by the Irish writer Bram Stoker. It was first published by Rider and Son of London in 1911 – the year before Stoker's death – with colour illustrations by Pamela Colman Smith. The story is bas ...
'' and Ian Watson's 1988 novel ''The Fire Worm'' draw heavily on the Lambton Worm legend. This myth, along with many others originating from the North East, is retold in the
graphic novel A graphic novel is a long-form, fictional work of sequential art. The term ''graphic novel'' is often applied broadly, including fiction, non-fiction, and anthologized work, though this practice is highly contested by comic scholars and industry ...
'' Alice in Sunderland'' by
Bryan Talbot Bryan Talbot (born 24 February 1952) is a British comics artist and writer, best known as the creator of ''The Adventures of Luther Arkwright'' and its sequel '' Heart of Empire'', as well as the ''Grandville'' series of books. He collaborated ...
. Jeff Smith's graphic novel ''
Rose A rose is either a woody perennial flowering plant of the genus ''Rosa'' (), in the family Rosaceae (), or the flower it bears. There are over three hundred species and tens of thousands of cultivars. They form a group of plants that can be ...
'' has the title character following the same instructions to order to defeat a dragon. The Lambton Worm legend, including the subsequent death of Henry Lambton, is referred to in
Thomas Pynchon Thomas Ruggles Pynchon Jr. ( , ; born May 8, 1937) is an American novelist noted for his dense and complex novels. His fiction and non-fiction writings encompass a vast array of subject matter, genres and themes, including history, music, scie ...
's novel ''
Mason and Dixon ''Mason & Dixon'' is a postmodernist novel by American author Thomas Pynchon, published in 1997. It presents a fictionalized account of the collaboration between Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon in their astronomical and surveying exploits in th ...
''; typically, given the themes of mythology and historiography within the novel, Pynchon alters some details of the legend (for instance, moving to Transylvania the location of the "wise woman" who gives advice given to John Lambton on how to defeat the worm). A version of the tale was published by
Joseph Jacobs Joseph Jacobs (29 August 1854 – 30 January 1916) was an Australian folklorist, translator, literary critic, social scientist, historian and writer of English literature who became a notable collector and publisher of English folklore. Jacobs ...
, using William Henderson's text in ''Folk-Lore of Northern Counties'' as a source. "
Jabberwocky "Jabberwocky" is a nonsense poem written by Lewis Carroll about the killing of a creature named "the Jabberwock". It was included in his 1871 novel ''Through the Looking-Glass'', the sequel to '' Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' (1865). The ...
" may have been partly inspired by the legend of the Lambton Worm. Willam Mayne's children's novel ''The Worm in the Well,'' published in 2002, is an adapted retelling of the Lambton Worm legend. Sarah Hindmarsh's "The Worm," a short story published in ''The Forgotten and the Fantastical 2,'' edited by Teika Bellamy, is based on the Lambton Worm story. The modern fantasy novel ''The Green Man's Heir'' (2018) by Juliet E. McKenna features a surviving juvenile specimen and the urgent need to counter the threat it presents. In 2018,
Mike Mignola Mike Mignola (; born September 16, 1960) is an American comics artist and writer best known for creating ''Hellboy'' for Dark Horse Comics, part of a shared universe of titles including ''B.P.R.D.'', '' Abe Sapien'', '' Lobster Johnson'', '' Wit ...
& Ben Steinbeck produced a short comic titled "Return of the Lambton Worm," which features a confrontation between the monster and
Hellboy Hellboy is a fictional superhero created by writer-artist Mike Mignola. The character first appeared in ''San Diego Comic-Con Comics'' #2 (August 1993), and has since appeared in various eponymous miniseries, one-shots and intercompany crossover ...
.


Opera

''The Lambton Worm'' (1978) is an opera in two acts by the composer
Robert Sherlaw Johnson Robert Sherlaw Johnson (21 May 1932 – 3 November 2000), was a British composer, pianist and music scholar. Sherlaw Johnson was one of that group of post-war British musicians whose work reflected wider European interests in new ideas, techn ...
with a
libretto A libretto (Italian for "booklet") is the text used in, or intended for, an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata or Musical theatre, musical. The term ''libretto'' is also sometimes used to refer to the t ...
by the Oxford poet
Anne Ridler Anne Barbara Ridler OBE (née Bradby) (30 July 1912 – 15 October 2001) was a British poet and Faber and Faber editor, selecting the Faber ''A Little Book of Modern Verse'' with T. S. Eliot (1941). Her ''Collected Poems'' (Carcanet Press ...
. There are eleven solo roles (four of them major), a chorus and orchestra.


Film

The 1988 film ''
The Lair of the White Worm ''The Lair of the White Worm'' is a horror novel by the Irish writer Bram Stoker. It was first published by Rider and Son of London in 1911 – the year before Stoker's death – with colour illustrations by Pamela Colman Smith. The story is bas ...
'' is based on Stoker's novel. Leumane's song is recast in the film as the "d'Ampton Worm", arranged by Emilio Perez Machado and Stephan Powys, and performed by them and Louise Newman. In 1989, screenwriter Anthony Shaffer wrote a
film treatment A film treatment (or simply treatment) is a piece of prose, typically the step between scene cards (index cards) and the first draft of a screenplay for a motion picture, television program, or radio play. It is generally longer and more detail ...
for '' The Loathsome Lambton Worm'', a direct sequel to his 1973 film ''
The Wicker Man ''The Wicker Man'' is a 1973 British folk horror film directed by Robin Hardy and starring Edward Woodward, Britt Ekland, Diane Cilento, Ingrid Pitt, and Christopher Lee. The screenplay by Anthony Shaffer, inspired by David Pinner's 1967 ...
''. The sequel would have involved the original film's protagonist, a Scottish police officer, battling the Lambton Worm. However, it was never officially produced. A
fan-made Fan labor, also called fan works, are the creative activities engaged in by fans, primarily those of various media properties or musical groups. These activities can include creation of written works (fiction, fan fiction and review literature), ...
full-cast
audio drama Radio drama (or audio drama, audio play, radio play, radio theatre, or audio theatre) is a dramatized, purely acoustic performance. With no visual component, radio drama depends on dialogue, music and sound effects to help the listener imagine ...
adaptation of Shaffer's ''The Loathsome Lambton Worm'' treatment was eventually released in 2020.


See also

*
Sockburn Worm In the folklore of Northumbria, the Sockburn Worm was a ferocious wyvern that laid waste to the village of Sockburn in Durham. It was said that the beast was finally slain by John Conyers. The tale is said by many to be the inspiration for Lewis C ...
*
The Laidly Worm of Spindleston Heugh ''The Laidly Worm of Spindleston Heugh'', also known as ''The Laidly Worm of Bamborough'', is a Northumbrian ballad about a princess who is changed into a dragon (the "laidly worm" of the title). Synopsis In the Kingdom of Northumbria, a kind k ...
*
Worm of Linton The Linton Worm is a mythical beast referred to in a Scottish Borders legend dating back to the 12th century. "Wyrm" is the Old English for serpent. A 12th-century writer believed it to be "In length three Scots yards and bigger than an ordinary ma ...
*
English folklore English folklore consists of the myths and legends of England, including the English region's mythical creatures, traditional recipes, urban legends, proverbs, superstitions, and folktales. Its cultural history is rooted in Celtic, Christia ...
*
Jabberwocky "Jabberwocky" is a nonsense poem written by Lewis Carroll about the killing of a creature named "the Jabberwock". It was included in his 1871 novel ''Through the Looking-Glass'', the sequel to '' Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' (1865). The ...
*
Mongolian death worm The Mongolian death worm ( mn, олгой-хорхой, ''olgoi-khorkhoi'', "large intestine-worm") is a creature alleged to exist in the Gobi Desert. The creature first came to Western attention as a result of Roy Chapman Andrews's 1926 boo ...


References


Bibliography

* * * * * * * * * * * * {{Citation , last = Tegner , first = Henry , title=Ghosts of the North Country , publisher=Butler Publishing , date=1991 , isbn=0-946928-40-1 , ref=none


External links


A version of the story by Philip Atkinson

A version of the story by Herrington Heritage







St. George's Church Parish Website

Atkinson, Philip ''Folk Tales of North East England''

The Lambton Worm – a cantata

The History of the Lambton and Sockburn Worms, Records of Early English Drama: North East Project
English folklore English folk songs Songs about fictional characters English legendary creatures Culture in Tyne and Wear European dragons City of Sunderland Northumbrian folklore Northumbrian folkloric beings County Durham folklore Music based on European myths and legends