298 CURIOUS CREATURES. 



and ran himself with open arms to meet his son. In- 

 stead of committing a parricide, the conqueror again 

 repaired to his adviser, who pronounced, as the alterna- 

 tive of disobeying the original instructions, that no chief 

 of the Lambtons should die in his bed for seven, (or as 

 some accounts say) for nine generations a commutation 

 which, to a martial spirit, had nothing probably very 

 terrible, and which was willingly complied with. . . . 



" In the garden-house at Lambton are two figures of no 

 great antiquity. A Knight in good style, armed cap-a-pie, 

 the back studded with razor blades, who holds the worm 

 by one ear with his left hand, and with his right crams 

 his sword to the hilt down his throat ; and a Lady who 

 wears a coronet, with bare breasts, &c., in the style of 

 Charles 2nd's Beauties, a wound on whose bosom and 

 an accidental mutilation of the hand are said to have 

 been the work of the worm." 



There were several other English " Wormes, " but 

 this must suffice as a type. Also, as a typical Scotch 

 " Worme," the Linton Worme will serve. A writer 

 (W. E.) tells its story so well in Notes and Queries, Feb- 

 ruary 24, 1866, that I transfer it here, in preference to 

 telling it myself. It was slain by Sir John Somerville, 

 about the year 1174, who received the lands and barony 

 of Linton, in Roxburghshire, as the reward of his exploit. 

 W. E. quotes from a family history entitled a " Memorie 

 of the Somervills," written by James, the eleventh lord, 

 A.D. 1679 : 



" ' In the parochene of Lintoune, within the sheriffdome 

 of Roxburghe, ther happened to breede ane hydeous 

 monster, in the forme of a worme, soe called and 

 esteemed by the country people (but in effecte has beene 

 a serpente or some suche other creature), in length three 



