In Examples of Printed Folk-lore Concerning Lincolnshire, Eliza Gutch and Mabel Peacock mention ‘A tradition, which probably took its rise at an early period, tells of a huge serpent that devastated the village of South Ormsby and was slain at the adjacent hamlet of Walmsgate.’ This is said to have been the handiwork of Sir Hugh Bardolph, more famously associated with dragon-slaying at Castle Carlton, a few miles to the north-east. On the Folk Tale Map, we have dropped this pin on Walmsgate Medieval Village, one of Lincolnshire’s many deserted villages visible now as a cross-hatch of earthworks, in this case crossed by a public footpath.

Ethel Rudkin, in 1955, published the following in the journal Folklore, though she does not mention Hugh Bardolph:

There is a Long Barrow on the roadside at Walmsgate, in the Wolds; locally the name is pronounced Wormsgate, and it is said that once, long ago, three Dragons lived in the neighbourhood, devastating the land. An unnamed hero took arms against them. He slew one, and it is buried in the long mound-this accounts for the name Wormsgate. Another Dragon flew away towards the Trent, but did not succeed in crossing that river. It settled down in Corringham Scroggs, a flight of some 35 miles; the place was known as Dragon’s Hole ever after; in fact, it is mentioned in the late Enclosure Award of 1852. The third Dragon was fatally wounded, and crept away and died at the next village of Ormsby, which they say was once Wormsby.

Words by RORY WATERMAN