Gurt Worm

 


I would just like to acknowledge the Benchends Blog https://benchends.wordpress.com/

They did all the research into the origin of the Gurt worm, without them I would have stopped at the legend as written and never realized something was off.


This time we look into a mystery, exactly what is the Gurt Worm, and why does its legend not line up with how the beast is depicted in art? Specifically the Gurt worm is a rather odd wyvern, depicted with a second face in its chest, yet no such thing appears in the written accounts of its story.


In the town of Crowcomb, Somerset there is a legend about a dragon who used to terrorize the near by Shervage Woods. It would eat livestock and attack anyone who entered the forest. Unfortunately for the people of Crowcombe, the Shervage Woods were the source of much needed firewood, as well as bilberries, the town’s claim to fame. The bilberries were so important that every year they would hold a festival when the berries ripen, and bake all sorts of sweets with them, pies, muffins and so forth. But the dragon was making it impossible to harvest the berries. The townsfolk sent in a number of brave men, but they never returned. By chance luck a travelling wood cutter came through town, and he was strong, brave and looked like he could handle a dragon. One of the townsfolk, an old lady, asked the travelling woodsman to cut some firewood for her, and to check if the bilberries were ripe yet. She conveniently left out the part about a dragon in the forest. The woodsman agreed and went into Shervage Woods. After a long morning of chopping wood, he sat down on a fallen log to each his lunch. However the log started moving. The woodsman jumped up in fright and saw that it was actually a dragon. With one mighty swing of his axe the woodsman chopped the dragon clean in half and killed it. He was lauded as a hero by the local townsfolk. From that day on the people of Crowcomb could harvest their bilberries in peace.


The owner of the Benchends blog noticed that the appearance of the dragon didn’t line up with the story. Personally, I didn’t think anything of it, as I’ve found lots of stories where the monster’s appearance in writing differs substantial from its artistic depictions. However Benchends dug deeper.


The modern retelling of the legend comes from author Ruth Tongue, from her 1960’s book Somerset Folklore. Benchends found that Ruth Tongue in turn worked from an older version of the legend which has now become lost, but two other dragons were mentioned along with, the Crowcombe dragon, which was a different dragon at the time, and the dragon of Norton Fitzwarren.


The visual appearance of the Gurt worm comes from the carving on a church bench, which is why Benchends got involved. There you can see the Gurt worm in its full weirdness. You can also see two naked men fighting the dragon with spears.


From Benchends blog, photo belongs to them.

 And you might have noticed, that’s not the woodsman from the story. Now, while the appearance of monsters tends to shift from various retelling of stories, the people don’t tend to change as drastically. And that’s because the people are the most important parts of the story, for normal non-monster obsessed people, unlike myself. So what’s going on here?


You might think, oh, Benchends just found a random image of a dragon that happens to be in the same town and assumed the carving and story are connected. Nope, the whole town recognizes that image as the Gurt worm. They even bring school children into the church to point out the dragon carving and tell them the story of the Gurt worm. So in the minds of the Crowcombe residents they are connected, it’s not just Benchends reaching.


Benchends did some more digging and found another carving of the same dragon in Bristol, on a misericord (a wooden plank attached to the back of church seats, which can be pulled down and kneeled on while praying). Here the dragon is chasing three naked men. Furthermore the images of the two faced dragon chasing three naked men is almost identical to an engraving print made by Thielman Kerver, which was made for the Book Of Hours of Paris, but ended up being used in many other books.


So the two faced dragon started out as a print engraving made by a German carver, working in France. The image made its way to England, where it was carved in a church in Bristol. Another carving was made based on it, of similar characters in a different scene, in the church in Crowcombe. And then the legend of the Gurt worm being slain by a woodsman got associated with the carving, even though the story doesn’t really match up with the image. That was quite the journey.


In the end we’re left with several other questions. Is there a story behind the three naked men being chased by a dragon? I think there is. I don’t think the detail of the men being naked would be thrown in unless there was a story behind that, but whatever that story is, it’s lost to time now. Also how did the Gurt worm become associated with that carving when they’re so different. And what happened to the other Crowcombe dragon? We’ll probably never know these things.


All of this is a lesson on how legends form. We tend to think of stories building in a linear manner. Maybe someone got scared by a snake in Shervage Woods while picking bilberries, then over time the story got more and more exaggerated and worked its way into the identity of the town, then immortalized in a church carving. But the truth is, the way these things develop tends to be a lot messier. Stories being retroactively applied to things, details working their way in from unexpected sources, other detailing being lost, all happen quite a bit. Legends are living things which constantly grow and twist in their own way. So, is the story of the Gurt worm inaccurate, now that the source has been uncovered? No, it’s exactly how the people of Crowcombe want it to be, and that’s good enough.


Sources

https://benchends.wordpress.com/2017/07/01/the-crowcombe-dragon-and-the-gurt-wurm-of-shervage/


https://www.blackdrago.com/fame/shervage.htm

https://www.pucaprinthouse.com/post/mythical-beasts-of-england

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCODjM1rUFM





Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Horned Dogmen

Image
This entry is going to indulge in some original research. Something I’ve noticed among dogman encounters is the occasional mention of horned dogmen. The cryptid community is usually pretty thorough in classifying subtypes of cryptids. For instance there’s standard, hyena and rottweiler types of dogmen, based on their head and muzzle shape. Yet I haven’t seen anyone else in the cryptid community discuss horned dogmen as a category, just scattered unrelated stories. It’s possible that’s because these creatures aren’t always considered dogmen, but demons, or goatment who happen to have a canine head, although I would think that quality is important enough to change what sort of cryptid they’re classified as. So I’ve gathered here all the horned dogmen stories I could find.  Caldwell’s beasts This first encounter happened to Roger Caldwell in October of 2005. He was on a hiking trip along the Appalachian Trail through North Carolina at the time. Mr Caldwell was an experienced hiker who...
Read more

Panther

Image
  While most people know panthers as a jungle cat today in medieval bestiaries it was a very strange beast indeed. Just like other ‘mythical’ creatures like the calopus and the crocatta, the panther in medieval bestiaries is an example of a real animal from far off lands gaining a mythical status, to the point where it barely resembled it’s real life counterpart. The panther was first known to the ancient Greeks. To them it was still very cat like, being almost identical to a normal leopard, but with a multicolored coat. It was considered the mount of Dionysus. The panther was handed down from Greek records to medieval bestiaries, but by this time Europe was cut off from areas of the world where leopards actually lived, and the details of panther’s nature was largely forgotten. Instead the panther was made into an allegory about Christ gathering the people of the world. The panther would feast and then sleep for three days in a cave. On the third day the panther emerges and emits a...
Read more

Cape Sable Sea Serpent

Image
  The Cape Sable serpent is a sea monster spotted in Cape Sable, off the coast of Nova Scotia, Canada, in 1976. It was described as an ugly creature, covered in lumps and barnacles. It's head is like that of a wart hog, with bumps protruding off it's cheeks, and prominent tusks in its mouth. The creature's eyes are bloodshot and set on top of stalks, like a snail. It has a long serpentine body, 10 to 15 feet long and two feet thick. There's a back fin running down the length of its body and a fish like tail at the end. Its color is greyish brown in color. It moves through the water by undulating its body up and down, creating rows of humps that protrude out of the water. A swimming method seen in many sea serpents reports. The first sighting was on July 5, 1976. Eisner Penny was fishing off the coast of Cape Sable Island when he saw the sea serpent rising out of the water. He first thought the monster was a whale, but has he approached he realized it was unlike any a...
Read more