Linton Worm

The Linton Worm is a serpent-dragon of Scottish Borders legend that lived in a den on Linton Hill and was killed by a Somerville who thrust a burning, pitch-soaked peat on his lance into its throat.

The Story

Near the village of Linton in Roxburghshire, a great worm lived in a hollow on the north-east side of Linton Hill, a spot still called the Worm's Den. It came out to devour cattle and people, and no one dared go near it. A man of the Somerville family, usually named John Somerville, noticed that the worm opened its jaws wide at anything that came close. He had a local smith make a long lance fitted with a small wheel at its tip, and on it he fixed a lump of peat soaked in pitch.

He rode at the worm, set the peat alight, and drove the blazing lance down its open throat. The worm writhed in its death agony, and the twisting hills around Linton were said to have been shaped by its coils.

Appearance and Powers

The tradition describes a serpent-like worm and says little more. The method of killing it, fire forced into the mouth, is the same trick used against the Orkney Stoorworm and other northern dragons.

Origins and Sources

The fullest early account is in the Memorie of the Somervilles, a family history written by James, 11th Lord Somerville, in 1679 and published in 1815 with notes by Walter Scott. It credits John Somerville with the deed and says the family was granted the lands of Linton for it. The family crest, a wyvern perched on a wheel, was explained by the story. Over the door of Linton church is a weathered Romanesque carving of a mounted man with a lance attacking beasts, long linked with the legend. Who the hero really was, and whether the carving shows the story at all, is disputed.

Legacy

The Linton Worm is the best-known Scottish dragon legend after the Stoorworm. Like several English worm tales, it explains a family's land and heraldry. See Western dragons and dragons in Celtic mythology for context.

Related

• Lambton Worm: The Lambton Worm is a giant serpent of County Durham folklore, fished from the River Wear by young John Lambton, which grew huge, coiled around a hill, and could rejoin its body whenever it was cut apart.
• Sockburn Worm: The Sockburn Worm is a venomous dragon of County Durham legend, killed by Sir John Conyers with a falchion that is still presented to each new Bishop of Durham as the price of the Sockburn lands.
• Stoorworm: The Stoorworm, or Mester Stoorworm, is a colossal sea serpent of Orkney folklore whose poisonous breath threatened the land until the boy Assipattle burned it from the inside, its teeth becoming Orkney, Shetland, and the Faroes.
• Western Dragons
• Dragons in Celtic Mythology

Sources and Further Reading

• James, 11th Lord Somerville, Memorie of the Somervilles; Being a History of the Baronial House of Somerville, ed. Walter Scott, 2 vols. (Edinburgh, 1815)
• Jacqueline Simpson, British Dragons (Batsford, 1980; Wordsworth, 2001)

Cite this entry: “Linton Worm,” Draconika Encyclopedia of Dragons, https://www.draconika.com/dragons/linton-worm.