The Linton Worm

Wormiston, Fife, Scotland

A serpent that swallowed livestock and defeated every weapon turned against it was finally killed with a burning spear rammed down its own throat — and the knight who did it was rewarded with the land it terrorized.

In the twelfth century, a serpent said to be some nine feet long and as thick as a man's leg made its lair in a den near the village of Linton in Roxburghshire — a site that still carries the name Wormiston, the Worm's Den, in memory of it. The creature terrorized the surrounding farms, taking livestock and, by the fuller versions of the story, people, and proved immune to every weapon brought against it by local men. The man who ended the threat was John de Somerville, Laird of Lariston, who came to investigate after hearing the story told in nearby Jedburgh. Watching the creature, Somerville noticed that it would only swallow what fit inside its mouth. He had a spear forged with a wheel fitted near the tip, mounted a lump of peat soaked in tar and brimstone on the wheel, set it alight, and rammed it directly down the worm's throat as it opened its mouth to strike. The burning peat killed the creature from within. Somerville was knighted for the deed and made Royal Falconer to King William the Lion, who granted him the lands of Linton in 1174 as First Baron of Linton — a reward recorded, unusually for a monster-slaying story, in an actual land grant. A carved stone tympanum above the south door of Linton Kirk still depicts the killing, making it one of the few Scottish dragon legends with a surviving piece of contemporary or near-contemporary art to go with the tale.