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Myths Of Great Britain.
#54
Some of our Rogue members may have read my tales regarding the Last Witch of Underhill called Peggy Powler.
I've mentioned it a couple of times, but due to other connections to the bare-footed sorceress name's origins, I will relate it
once more. But the yarn below holds the diadem of not only being true, it nudges to the reader that linkages can take one
into realms never mused on when first setting foot on the track of investigation.

Wikipedia would tell you, 'Peg Powler' is a water-spirit that is supposed to dwell in England's North-East River Tees, a place
close to my current abode. Accused of the usual tricks performed by river-hags, Peg Powler will snatch children who stray
too-close to the fast-running waters or the slow deeper parts of the river.

Folklore says this weed-festooned harridan has a sister or daughter who lurks in a tributary of the Tees called Nanny Powler.
If true, this aquatic kiddie-grabbing relative is now waiting for her prey only a hundred feet from where I type as I can see the
River Skerne from the roof of Boy In A Dress' garden shed!

So I took a name that -to myself, smacked of an every-day, blue-collar-type of title for a regular person who travelled a rustic
agrarian land and interacted with magic and the mundane lives of country-folk. But looking back on the name of the little Witch
in my stories, the river where the primary creature inhabited held other tales that were littered with better prose than I could
ever disgorge!

When I was a kid of around eight or nine (Jeez, that's well over half-a-century ago!), my friend and I decided to create for a
school project, the Coat of Arms of our town via the use of paper-mache, basically a mixture of glue and paper. But before
we could even start tearing-up strips of the newspaper I would eventually work for, we needed to do something we had only
thought grown-ups did, something called 'research'.

[Image: attachment.php?aid=10974]
Darlington's Coat Of Arms.

Through the rare act of fact-finding in books written by-and-for adults, my friend and I discovered a world of the magic that
most children would believe only existed in their small, poorly-constructed and perilous environs. Flying reptilian creatures
that tore flesh and ravaged kingdoms, cruel conniving people who found wicked ends to their lives for their behaviour and
wealthy Elites who ruled through the power of knowing how to herd a population with the correct wordage.

But in our goal to identify the parts of our Coat of Arms, we came across a monster that -even today, watches with blood-red
eyes from the walls of my town's seventies-style Council Hall.

The sword-damaged 'Dragon' in my town's crest is classified as a Wyvern and on the opposite side of the dexter, a crowned
lion that is a representation of nobility and royalty. Being of a certain age, the Wyvern piqued our interest as -seeing the strange
-looking weapon jutting from its shoulder, hinted something had happened locally that our ex-WWII airman-of-a-teacher had not
told us about.

So instead of racing out into the surrounding woodlands -a regular dido for a weekend, myself and my fellow-finder struck out to
visit a place uncommon for working-class kids who constantly smelled of wild herbage and knee-injury ointment.
Those grown-ups I mentioned, call it a 'Library'.
.................................................

The simplified tale we initially learned was that where the River Tees left the built-up areas of my town, a monster roamed the
heavy woodland that corridored the peaty waters towards a village a few miles away. At the time of reading, we did not know
that this little quiet hamlet held a different boast of its own, that of being the residence of a Deacon's eldest son called Charles
Lutwidge Dodgson. This intelligent lad would grow up to leave his picturesque home in Croft-on-Tees, change his name and
scribe an outlandish children's novel titled 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'.

Back to the beastie. The Wyvern was -as Peggy Powler would suggest, being a bit-of-a-bugger!
It was eating livestock and terrorising the peasantry who tugged at their caps whenever nobility rode by and snootishly ignored
their hardships. A Wyvern is different from a Dragon as it has only two legs instead of four, sports leathery-wings and was not
known for breathing fire, but holds a highly-toxic poison in its breath. 

Then a local -and probably handsome, young man who was also taking an apprenticeship as a Knight, decided to take matters
into his own hands and relieve the simple-minded hayseeds of their scaly dilemma.

Using a long curved-blade sword (that one tale stated it came from 'The' Crusade!), called a Falchion, this Chuck-Norris-type was
said to have dispatched the evil serpent and probably swept up a flaxen-haired village damsel in his strong arms for good measure.
Of course, not appreciating what our hormones had in-mind for us further own the road, we breathed a different type of lust towards
the wonder of monsters and mystery that the tale betokened.
Maybe even then, Roswell was already whispering to this young lad who'd one day find a place called 'Rogue Nation'?!
.................................................

Nice yarn for the tourists and the children, but the real world doesn't work like that. Whatever wing-flapping monstrosity was on that
Coat of Arms must've had a rational reason for being there. Sh*te like 'Ancient Aliens' and 'Mermaids: The Body Found' hadn't even
been imagined when the emblem was first designed. So as blood-pumping puberty subsided and employment became a regular
girlfriend, I took a peek back into that building where ledgers of discombobulations collected dust along with their kin, journals of
enchantment.

Sockburn was a village just down-river from where Lewis Carroll giggled and played around the gravestones of his father's parish
of Croft-on-Tees. I say was, as it's been long deserted with only the remains of a church and a mansion can still be glimpsed.
Heck, even the Google-Map van can't get there!

But let's remain in the past where the sun always shone and 'Stealth-Omicron' was an expletive an angry farmer may exclaim after
discovering that the straw-chewing young man fleeing across his recently-ploughed field had just stolen his darling-daughter's
maidenhood in a nearby orchard.

Where the River Tees doubles-back on itself, the quaint community of Sockburn worked the lands of the local patricians, a wealthy
family known as the Conyers. The Conyers had been granted the rich acreage by Ranulf Flambard, a medieval Norman Bishop of
Durham during the reign of the king Henry III of England.

It seemed the powerful Barons of the country had been giving him some hassle and to deter their disgruntled demeanour, the rich
agricultural lands were to be checked to see that family lineage equalled the right to own them.

A ritual that is still performed to this day -the Falchion sword is handed to every new Prince-Bishop of Durham from a representative
(usually the Mayor of Durham) of the Conyers family and serves to commemorate the deistic-changeover. The rite was to assure the
landowners of the time of the Wyvern's slaying that their ownership of their vast properties had tradition connected to the powerful
Church and ergo, a bearing in the settled customs of the region.

Observance like this was important because at the time, the lands around England were being coveted by the King and his favourites
and disturbing the attitude of the Church could bring genuine problems in the game of social-control.
.................................................

Alas, the story of the 'Sockburn Worm' and Sir John Conyers was to be overshadowed by another slimy-coiled brute that terrorised
the rural communities of North-East England, the Lambton Worm. Our two-legged reptile fell into obscurity and for its noble slayer
-Sir John, he was later buried on the forgotten grounds of Sockburn Chapel and his descendants died-out alongside the community
of the village. Just like the wicked Wyvern, the land was carved-up and we have what we have today.

[Image: attachment.php?aid=10975]
The remains of the church and Sir John Conyers tomb. (Notice the Wyvern and faithful dog at his feet.)

Sir John's battle with the poisonous beast is documented in the Bowes Museum, situated in the market town of Barnard Castle in
County Durham.

"Sr John Conyers, Knt. slew yt monstrous and poysonous vermine or wyverne, who overthrew and devoured many people in fight,
for that ye sent of yt poison was so strong yt no person might abyde it. And by ye providence of Almighty God this John Connyers,
Kt, overthrew ye saide monster, and slew it. But before he made this enterprise, having but one sonne, he went to the Church of
Sockburne in compleate armour, and offered up yt his onely sonne to ye Holy Ghost. yt place where this great serpent laye was
called Graystane; and as it is written in ye same manuscript, this John lieth buried in Sockburne Church in compleat armour
before the Conquest. 

The noted sword ended-up in a glass display and kept in the Treasury of Durham Cathedral in the city of Durham.

[Image: attachment.php?aid=10976]

But what happened to the horrid Wyvern's body...? In the Lambton Worm tale, the serpentine torso had to be chopped up and cast
into the fast currents of the River Wear in order to stop the beast from reforming. It seems the Sockburn Worm held no such powers
and so just like its aristocratic killler, one would assume the monster would've passed into history without a by your leave.
Well.. remember the little kid running around the graveyard of Croft-on-Tees?

Charles Dodgson grew-up and with his parents wishing to further his education, he moved to Rugby school in Warwickshire, England.
To us now, Charles became Lewis Carroll and took pen to paper to write a strange poem called 'Stanza of Anglo-Saxon Poetry' where
the words described an odd creature that many would assume was simply from an expressive imagination.

"Twas bryllyg, and ye slythy toves Did gyre and gymble in ye wabe:
All mimsy were ye borogoves; And ye mome raths outgrabe..."

Appearing in the book 'Through the Looking Glass', it was about The Jabberwocky.

The Wyvern -that was to be moulded from sticky newspaper and painted by a pair of sixties children for a Coat of Arms-project,
now had a real name. Sir John Conyers had brought the sinewy-body low, but failed to rid the world of its memory. Carroll had
escaped with the Wyvern in his heart and wincing from the pain delivered by the Falchion sword, the beast had vowed to itself
that it would not go quietly into the night.

Somewhere beneath the rubble of a torn-down North-East Junior school, lies a chunk of chipboard with scuffed paper-mache glued
to it. The Jabberwocky lives in Carroll's immortal words and under that child-scrawled debris too.
Now, blinking at you -the dear reader, it's here as well.
tinywondering

[Image: attachment.php?aid=10977]
The Jabberwocky.


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Messages In This Thread
Myths Of Great Britain. - by BIAD - 11-02-2020, 12:32 PM
RE: Myths Of Great Britain. - by Ninurta - 11-02-2020, 12:57 PM
RE: Myths Of Great Britain. - by BIAD - 11-02-2020, 01:37 PM
RE: Myths Of Great Britain. - by Wallfire - 11-02-2020, 08:12 PM
RE: Myths Of Great Britain. - by BIAD - 11-02-2020, 10:00 PM
RE: Myths Of Great Britain. - by Wallfire - 11-03-2020, 07:48 AM
RE: Myths Of Great Britain. - by guohua - 11-11-2020, 07:13 PM
RE: Myths Of Great Britain. - by BIAD - 11-03-2020, 01:57 PM
RE: Myths Of Great Britain. - by BIAD - 11-05-2020, 02:01 PM
RE: Myths Of Great Britain. - by BIAD - 11-06-2020, 10:50 PM
RE: Myths Of Great Britain. - by BIAD - 11-11-2020, 11:37 PM
RE: Myths Of Great Britain. - by Ninurta - 11-12-2020, 06:26 PM
RE: Myths Of Great Britain. - by BIAD - 11-12-2020, 06:36 PM
RE: Myths Of Great Britain. - by PLOTUS - 11-12-2020, 06:46 PM
RE: Myths Of Great Britain. - by BIAD - 11-12-2020, 07:08 PM
RE: Myths Of Great Britain. - by Wallfire - 11-15-2020, 11:41 AM
RE: Myths Of Great Britain. - by BIAD - 11-12-2020, 06:55 PM
RE: Myths Of Great Britain. - by BIAD - 11-14-2020, 11:03 PM
RE: Myths Of Great Britain. - by BIAD - 11-18-2020, 05:57 PM
RE: Myths Of Great Britain. - by BIAD - 11-30-2020, 10:58 PM
RE: Myths Of Great Britain. - by BIAD - 12-18-2020, 01:30 PM
RE: Myths Of Great Britain. - by Wallfire - 12-18-2020, 01:48 PM
RE: Myths Of Great Britain. - by BIAD - 12-18-2020, 02:02 PM
RE: Myths Of Great Britain. - by Ninurta - 12-18-2020, 08:31 PM
RE: Myths Of Great Britain. - by BIAD - 12-18-2020, 08:44 PM
RE: Myths Of Great Britain. - by Ninurta - 12-18-2020, 08:50 PM
RE: Myths Of Great Britain. - by BIAD - 12-18-2020, 08:55 PM
RE: Myths Of Great Britain. - by BIAD - 12-19-2020, 10:03 PM
RE: Myths Of Great Britain. - by NightskyeB4Dawn - 12-19-2020, 11:42 PM
RE: Myths Of Great Britain. - by BIAD - 12-20-2020, 07:21 PM
RE: Myths Of Great Britain. - by NightskyeB4Dawn - 12-20-2020, 08:35 PM
RE: Myths Of Great Britain. - by BIAD - 12-27-2020, 03:33 PM
RE: Myths Of Great Britain. - by Wallfire - 12-27-2020, 06:31 PM
RE: Myths Of Great Britain. - by BIAD - 12-27-2020, 06:36 PM
RE: Myths Of Great Britain. - by Wallfire - 12-27-2020, 06:51 PM
RE: Myths Of Great Britain. - by Ninurta - 12-28-2020, 12:15 AM
RE: Myths Of Great Britain. - by BIAD - 01-02-2021, 12:36 PM
RE: Myths Of Great Britain. - by Ninurta - 01-20-2021, 12:24 AM
RE: Myths Of Great Britain. - by BIAD - 04-11-2021, 12:15 PM
RE: Myths Of Great Britain. - by gordi - 04-11-2021, 01:19 PM
RE: Myths Of Great Britain. - by BIAD - 04-11-2021, 02:15 PM
RE: Myths Of Great Britain. - by Ninurta - 04-12-2021, 10:33 PM
RE: Myths Of Great Britain. - by BIAD - 04-13-2021, 09:10 AM
RE: Myths Of Great Britain. - by F2d5thCav - 04-13-2021, 12:04 PM
RE: Myths Of Great Britain. - by BIAD - 05-14-2021, 04:26 PM
RE: Myths Of Great Britain. - by BIAD - 07-02-2021, 09:47 PM
RE: Myths Of Great Britain. - by BIAD - 08-06-2021, 10:32 PM
RE: Myths Of Great Britain. - by BIAD - 08-20-2021, 05:06 PM
RE: Myths Of Great Britain. - by Ninurta - 08-21-2021, 03:25 AM
RE: Myths Of Great Britain. - by BIAD - 08-21-2021, 10:13 AM
RE: Myths Of Great Britain. - by Ninurta - 08-21-2021, 06:34 PM
RE: Myths Of Great Britain. - by BIAD - 08-21-2021, 07:34 PM
RE: Myths Of Great Britain. - by BIAD - 12-06-2021, 04:15 PM
RE: Myths Of Great Britain. - by BIAD - 03-23-2022, 02:38 PM
RE: Myths Of Great Britain. - by Rodinus - 03-23-2022, 04:15 PM
RE: Myths Of Great Britain. - by BIAD - 03-23-2022, 04:24 PM
RE: Myths Of Great Britain. - by Rodinus - 03-23-2022, 04:32 PM
RE: Myths Of Great Britain. - by BIAD - 03-23-2022, 04:36 PM
RE: Myths Of Great Britain. - by WonderCow - 03-23-2022, 04:18 PM
RE: Myths Of Great Britain. - by BIAD - 03-23-2022, 04:23 PM
RE: Myths Of Great Britain. - by guohua - 03-23-2022, 05:45 PM
RE: Myths Of Great Britain. - by BIAD - 03-23-2022, 06:11 PM
RE: Myths Of Great Britain. - by Ninurta - 05-04-2022, 06:34 PM
RE: Myths Of Great Britain. - by putnam6 - 03-23-2022, 06:12 PM
RE: Myths Of Great Britain. - by BIAD - 03-23-2022, 06:17 PM
RE: Myths Of Great Britain. - by BIAD - 04-04-2022, 12:12 PM
RE: Myths Of Great Britain. - by BIAD - 05-04-2022, 04:52 PM
RE: Myths Of Great Britain. - by Ninurta - 05-04-2022, 06:00 PM
RE: Myths Of Great Britain. - by BIAD - 05-21-2022, 09:32 AM
RE: Myths Of Great Britain. - by BIAD - 06-03-2022, 01:19 PM
RE: Myths Of Great Britain. - by Ninurta - 06-03-2022, 09:50 PM
RE: Myths Of Great Britain. - by BIAD - 06-03-2022, 09:57 PM
RE: Myths Of Great Britain. - by Ninurta - 06-03-2022, 10:12 PM
RE: Myths Of Great Britain. - by Selbiene_Raveren - 06-04-2022, 12:37 AM
RE: Myths Of Great Britain. - by BIAD - 06-04-2022, 08:34 AM
RE: Myths Of Great Britain. - by BIAD - 06-11-2022, 11:04 AM
RE: Myths Of Great Britain. - by BIAD - 07-03-2022, 09:45 AM
RE: Myths Of Great Britain. - by Minstrel - 07-03-2022, 01:54 PM
RE: Myths Of Great Britain. - by BIAD - 07-03-2022, 02:17 PM
RE: Myths Of Great Britain. - by BIAD - 07-24-2022, 07:49 PM
RE: Myths Of Great Britain. - by Ninurta - 08-07-2022, 07:59 AM
RE: Myths Of Great Britain. - by BIAD - 08-07-2022, 06:57 PM
RE: Myths Of Great Britain. - by BIAD - 10-21-2022, 02:44 PM

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