The British Isles are rich in fairy stories, and there are many tales of the strange beasts that roam the fog-covered forests and misty mountains of that strange island on the edge of Europe. One of the most enduring of the tales hails from north eastern England, where visitors would hear the tale of the Lambton worm.
This monstrous creature, huge and draconic, lived in the wilds of Northumberland where it would terrorize the population. Stories die hard, and for many centuries the Lambton Worm was assumed to be real, just another way to meet a violent end beyond the safety of towns and castles.
Many claimed to have even seen the Lambton worm, with reports of sightings coming in from many different parts of north England for a thousand years. The legends linked with the Lambton worm slowly became folklore, but the question remains: where do they come from?
The Lambton Worm
Much of the credit for modern awareness of the Lambton worm comes from the popular Victorian folk song written about it in 1867 by C M Leumane. To find the first written evidence of the legend of the Lambton worm we must go a century further back, to 1785 and William Hutchinson.
But the stories Leumane and Hutchinson were working with were far older, and neither claimed to have invented the legend. They did both agree on a particular location of importance however, a glacial moraine left over from the last Ice Age in Fatfield, Washington, about halfway between the British cities of Newcastle and Sunderland.
This feature has been known as long as anyone can remember as Worm Hill, and it was here that people believe that the Lambton worm once lived. The creature was seen as a menace, destroying the nearby fields and crops of the Lambton estate. It was down to the Lambton family to deal with the monster on their grounds. More specifically, it was down to Sir John Lambton, the man partly responsible for the Lambton worm.
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The legend of the Lambton Worm goes in this way: one day, a young John Lambton was fishing by the river Wear that flowed near his soon-to-be inherited estate. He was fishing when he caught a very strange creature with the body of an eel and a dragon’s head.
Not knowing what it really was and sad that he could not catch a fish, he discarded the eel-like creature in a nearby well, later ominously known as the worm well. Young Lambton then left his home for many years: he was to be a crusader, a Knight of Rhodes fighting far from home in penance for his profligate youth.
However, the worm that John Lambton discarded was not dead, and it had been growing inside the well for all the years that Lambton was not at home. The worm grew so big that it reached an enormous size and, outgrowing the well, needed a new lair. Escaping from the well, the worm wrapped itself around the mound called Worm Hill near the Lambton estate.
Its presence in the nearby River Wear was an early menace, and it was said to hide underwater near a particular rock. The worm was at first not threatening to the estate people on land, but this was to change. As it grew, its appetite also grew.
As the appetite grew, the worm started to attack and eat cattle, sheep and even the occasional child who came near its habitat. The worm soon became extremely dangerous, and the village people and estate inhabitants grew worried about the venomous and enormous serpent-like creature.
When John Lambton returned from his crusade, he was a changed man. He had transformed into a brave and dauntless knight, strong and noble. He knew that the worm was the same worm he had caught years ago, and it was his duty to put an end to the now dangerous creature so that the nearby people could live peacefully.
He then tried to kill the worm many times but failed to do so. The worm by this point was too powerful and no matter how gravely he injured it, the worm would always escape and always recover. Strong as he was, Lambton needed help. To kill the worm, Lambton then consulted a witch that lived near his estate.
The Killing and the Curse
The local wise woman then advised him on how to kill the worm, and how to get rid of it forever. Lambton was warned that if he beheaded the worm, it would not die, but the two severed halves could rejoin and it would live again.
Heeding the wise local woman’s advice, Lambton wore armor fitted with many razor blades and sought out the Lambton worm in the River Wear. On seeing the knight in his shining armor approach, the worm once again attacked, slithering up the banks of the river and trying to crush him by wrapping around him.
However, this was a fatal mistake for the worm. The razor-sharp scales of the armor cut through the worm’s body, shredding its soft flesh. The worm recoiled in pain and John Lambton was able to chop what was left to pieces, which were carried away by the current. Utterly destroyed, the worm could never reform and come back to life.
When the Lambton Worm was dead, everyone hailed John Lambton as a hero of the hour. However, his task was not yet complete. The witch also asked him to kill the first person who would go on to greet him after he killed the worm.
However, the first person to greet him was his father, and Lambton could never kill him. So, he did not listen to the witch’s advice. The witch had warned Lambton that if he failed to do so, his family would be placed under a curse, and the next heirs of the family would not be able to die in their beds.
This perhaps meant that they would die in battle or because of foul play and not from natural causes and old age. The curse came true, and of the next nine generations of Lambton heirs, none would die peacefully in their own bed.
The Lambton family and their estate is real and survives to this day in the person of Edward Lambton, Seventh Earl of Durham. Worm Hill is real as well. Could the stories of brave Sir John Lambton and his fight with the Lambton worm be real as well?
Top Image: The legend of the Lambton Worm has been recounted for almost a thousand years. Source: Anastasiya / Adobe Stock.
By Bipin Dimri
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