Sunday, May 31, 2015

The Sockburn Worm and the Conyers Falchion


According to legend, around the time of the Norman Conquest, a huge man-eating dragon with poisonous breath, here more properly described as a worm, wyvern or flying serpent was terrorising the Sockburn area (known before 1066 as Storkburn) in England . Sir John Conyers took up the challenge to slay the beast. Before heading out he visited a church in his full armour and offered the life of his only son to the Holy Ghost. After killing the worm he buried the hideous beast under a large stone which is supposed to still be visible today.
"Sr Jo Conyers of Storkburn Knt who slew ye monstrous venoms and poysons wiverms Ask or worme which overthrew and Devourd many people in fight, for the scent of poyson was soo strong, that no person was able to abide it, yet he by the providence of god overthrew it and lyes buried at Storkburn before the Conquest, but before he did enterprise it (having but one sonne) he went to the Church in compleat armour and offered up his sonne to the holy ghost, which monument is yet to see, and the place where the serpent lay is called Graystone."
(From British Museum MS Harleian No. 2118, fo. 39, circa 1625-49)
A Wyverm is different than a dragon:  wyvern (/ˈwvərn/ weye-vərn), sometimes spelled wivern, is a legendary winged creature with a dragon's head and wings; a reptilian body; two legs; and a barbed tail. A sea-dwelling variant, dubbed the sea-wyvern, has a fish tail in place of a barbed dragon's tail.




There's a legend surrounding the Conyers falchion, where the sword is said to have been wielded by Sir John Conyers when he slew the Sockburn Worm in 1063. The Conyers family probably came from France to England around the time of the Norman Conquest (1066 and all that). They were granted the manor Sockburn-on-Tees (formerly known as Storkburn) in County Durham in the 12th century, according to the legend because of Sir John's slaying of the dragon. The sword was later presented to the Cathedral of Durham and from that day on each new Prince-Bishop of Durham was presented with the sword upon entering their new Bishopric for the first time in the middle of the River Tees. The senior Conyers offered the falchion to the Prince-Bishop as a sign that he recognized the Bishop as his overlord, and then the falchion was returned to him and he was quit of all services. It lapsed after 1771, and wasn't performed in over 200 years. The falchion was kept at Sockburn Hall, but in 1947, it was presented to the Dean and Chapter of Durham Cathedral by Mr. Arthur Edward Blackett. The ceremony was revived in 1994, when the new bishop took office. It includes the following presentation speech, traditionally made by the Lord of Sockburn;
"My Lord Bishop. I hereby present you with the falchion wherewith the champion Conyers slew the worm, dragon or fiery flying serpent which destroyed man, woman and child; in memory of which the king then reigning gave him the manor of Sockburn, to hold by this tenure, that upon the first entrance of every bishop into the county the falchion should be presented."
The Sockburn Worm itself was almost certainly immortalized by Lewis Carroll in his famous nonsense rhyme, "Jabberwocky", as he lived in Croft on Tees as a boy and it was there he wrote the first verse of the rhyme. There's a theory that the legend has its roots in the slaying of some marauding Viking chieftain, who made their raids using dragon-headed longships, but that would be a too mundane an explanation.

                                                         The actual Conyers Falchion, which indeed appears capable of slaying a "Worm."






5 comments:

  1. That blade would do the job.

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  2. Being an exterminator in those days was not a great job to have.

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    1. Hahaha! But if you do it right you are famous forevermore.

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  3. Isn't the interweb wonderful?

    Here I am, a Brit, raised (if not born) in County Durham (the 'Land of the Prince Bishops' as it still says on the signs) for the first sixteen years of my life and … I’d never even heard of Conyers or the Worme.

    It's worse than that though, I lived no more than twenty miles from there, did my 'formative drinking' in Darlington and surrounds, dated a number of young (unfortunately-no-matter-how-hard-I-tried-to-persuade-them-to-be-otherwise) ladies from Middleton-St.-George (only 2 or 3 miles away) and … I'm being told about it by an American, thousands of miles away, who has never even been there and probably never will, how embarrassing.

    I blame the 'much more pressing interests of youth', never having been back since and the fact that you simply can't walk a mile around there without tripping over some antiquity, monument or historical site (even our house was older than your country and my Grammar School had a Roman fort on its cross-country course – you have no idea how much Lorica Segmentata chafes until you've had to do PE in it). An excuse? Maybe but it's a good one and I'm sticking to it.

    By the way, those Prince Bishops were apparently quite a 'bawdy' (not to mention violent and often alcoholic) lot, you should hear some of what they used to get up to (especially at their 'little' get-away/hunting lodge and deer park, they named the town there for it – [the] Bishop[s] [Oak]Auckland. Just a small unassuming mansion filled with silver, gold and old-masters. I only know because I had a 'friend' who was the gamekeepers daughter and 'made use' of the facilities when the bishop wasn't home – Ah, the good old days!).

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    1. You wouldn't believe how popular British TV is here in the colonies. We have our own "bawdy lot" here in California. Our former Austrian body builder governor had an affair with his maid, and the issue from that just graduated from high school, which naturally was in all the papers. Bawdy Arnold had his own not too successful struggles keeping his "worm" under wraps, to our amusement. I guess the times may change, but people pretty much remain the same.

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