“The Lambton Worm.” Fairy Gold : A Book of Old English Fairy Tales Chosen by Ernest Rhys, Ernest Rhys, London: J.M. Dent & Co.; New York : E.P. Dutton & co., 1907, pp. 8-12.

Tale Summary

Once upon a time, there was a young heir of Lambton Castle, who lived a very careless life. One Sunday morning he was fishing, and after cursing for a time after having no bites, caught a worm, which he tossed into a nearby well (still known as the Worm Well). A venerable looking stranger saw and asked what he had caught, and the boy showed him the worm in the well; he had never seen anything like it and thought it a bad omen. The worm soon outgrew the well, and then began to outgrow the hill it lived on (known as Worm Hill), and became a terror to the town, just about a mile and a half away from old Lambton Hall. The household assembled in council, and an old wise man said that a large trough in the courtyard must be filled with milk. This they did, and it appeased the worm enough to keep it at bay. Many knights over the years traveled to fight the creature, but none succeeded, because the worm had the ability to rejoin itself if it were cut. After seven years, the heir of Lambton returned, and after seeing the damage the worm had done, took counsel from a wise-woman. She instructed him to get a good suit of armor, stud it with spear-heads, and stand in the river to meet the worm after taking a certain vow. This vow would allow him to slay the first living thing he encountered on his way homewards, but if he did not succeed, no lord of Lambton for nine generations would die in his bed. He prepared himself, taking the vow and putting on the armor, and met the worm in the water. The worm squeezed him tightly, but the harder it squeezed, the more the spear-heads hurt it, until the heir was able to chop the worm up and let the pieces be carried away with the current, unable to be rejoined. He had promised his father to blow a bugle to alert him of his success and safety, and so that the lord could let loose his favorite dog to meet him as the victim of his vow. When he blew the bugle, his father was overcome with happiness that his son was still alive, and forgot all about the vow, and ran out to see him. The heir, in a panic, blew the bugle again, and the dog ran in front of the lord and was slain. But, it was too late, and the vow was broken, because he did not kill the one he saw first, and the wise-woman’s curse lay upon the Lambton’s for nine generations.