The worms of Great Britain, and particularly the Celtic worms, seem to show some influence from the Scandinavian worms or dragons, though these were sometimes winged and fire-breathing. Smaug, the dragon in Tolkien's book The Hobbit, though he is a literary creation, is a good exemplar of a Scandinavian or Teutonic dragon. He is wily and able to talk, a treasure-guarder and winged, with only one vulnerable spot on him. Sometimes a dragon is a transformed man, as Fafnir was, the dragon which Siegfried slew. C.S.Lewis made use of this motif in one of his Narnia books. The Voyage of the Dawn-Treader, when Eustace, having fallen asleep lying on treasure, with covetous thoughts in his heart, wakes to find himself transformed into a dragon. The only trace of this motif in English dragon traditions is in the half-farcical gipsy tale 'The Long, Long Worm', reported by Ruth Tongue in Forgotten Folk-Tales of the English Counties, in which the mile-long worm lightly buried under leaves is lying covering a long lair of golden treasure. Two typical British worm-dragons are the lambton worm from Yorkshire which is in the form of an 'eft' or newt, which grows monstrously after being pulled from the river Wear by the prodigal heir of Lambton, who is sacrilegiously fishing on a Sunday, and thrown into a neighbouring well. When it emerges it is in the form ofan enormous lizard which ravages the countryside, sometimes curling round a neighbouring hill and sometimes round a great rock in the river. It possesses the quality, superstitiously attributed to serpents, of re-joining if it is cut in two, and its breath is poisonous rather than fiery. The Orcadian Mester Stoorworm in the story of Assipattle is a sea-serpent of monstrous size, for its burning body was screwed up in its last agony into the island of Iceland. It was destroyed by thrusting a burning peat down its throat which ignited its internal fat.

The Dragon of Loschy Hill, whose story is quoted in County Folk-Lore (vol.II), was self-joining like the Lambton Worm, and was conquered by the help of the hero's dog, who carried it away piecemeal to prevent the reunion of the parts. The poisonous fumes of the monster proved fatal to both the master and the dog. The linton worm, which was comparatively dwarfish, rather less than twelve feet in length, was conquered by Somerville of Lariston, as the Mester Stoorworm had been, by thrusting a burning peat on a long lance down its throat.

The Highland worms were generally closely connected with the sea or rivers. In J.F.Campbell's 'The Sea-Maiden', a three-headed sea monster comes up to claim the princess as its prey, as the Mester Stoorworm claimed Gemdelovely.

There are a few Highland water creatures which might qualify as worms. J.G.Campbell mentions the Big Beast of Lochave (Beathach mor Loch Odha), but not very explicitly, only saying that it had twelve legs and was to be heard in winter breaking the ice. He adds that some say it was like a horse, others like a large eel. The notorious Loch Ness Monster is usually described as having a serpent-like head and bumps which appear above the water as it moves. Among the monsters described by J.G.Campbell in Superstitions of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland (p.220) is the Sea Serpent (Cirein Groin). He says of it:

This was the largest animal in the world, as may be inferred from a popular Caithness rhyme:

Seven herring are a salmon's fill,

Seven salmon are a seal's fill,

Seven seals are a whale's fill,

and seven whales the fill of a Cirein Cròin.

To this is sometimes added, 'seven Cirein Croin are the fill of the big devil himself'.

This immense sea-animal is also called Mial mhdr a chuain, the great beast of the ocean, cuartag mhdr a chuain, the great whirlpool of the ocean, and uile-bheisd a chuain, the monster of the ocean. It was originally a whirlpool, or the sea-snake of the Edda, that encircled the whole world.

There is a curious shortage of dragons or worms in the Irish fairy-tales or heroic legends. The main adversaries are giants, of which there are a great number, and supernatural hags. Patrick Kennedy, however, in Legendary Fictions of the Irish Celts (p.11), says that there are a number of traditions of conflicts with worms or serpents:

We have more than one large pool deriving its name from having been infested by a worm or a serpent in the days of the heroes. Fion M'Cumhaill killed several of these. A Munster champion slew a terrible specimen in the Duffrey (Co. Wexford), and the pool in which it sweltered is yet called Loch-na-Piastha.

It sounds as if these creatures might be something like the Welsh Afanc.

[Motifs: B11.11; B91]