A young man called Samuel has burned to death, but his spirit rises, and hears a voice tell him to enter the earth, so a big worm can eat him and he can rest in peace. He does so, somehow, and finds himself in a stinking hole where a great worm is coiled on a flat stone. The worm asks him to fetch his body, so he goes to the fire and returns with a sack containing his ashes. The worm sniffs it and asks where his arm is; Samuel says a doctor had removed it, and is told to retrieve this, so he does. Then the worm asks where one of his fingernails is, and sends Samuel to find it. But he can’t, and for that reason he still roams looking for it.

Recounted by Marie Clothilde Balfour for her three-part ‘Legends of the Cars’, published in Folklore (1891). Balfour lived in Redbourne while collecting the tales, though it is not clear precisely where she was when she heard this. She claimed to have been told it by a girl called Fanny, who also told her ‘The Dead Moon’. The story is almost certainly a conclusion to a variant of ‘Fred the Fool’. Written retellings include Kevin Crossley-Holland’s, in The Old Stories (1997).

Words by RORY WATERMAN