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The Dragon of London
In 1314, the Knights of the Temple of Solomon were officially disbanded. Their order cast down; their lands and property confiscated; their titles revoked and their members either condemned to death or to exile. But at one time, their order, and their members, were considered the paramount knights in all of Europe: their deeds; legendary: their courage; unmatched. In their brief existence, from 1118 to 1314, they were called upon to defend Christendom from the forces of Saladin, Bailers and Genghis Khan. Legend also tells us that they were called on to fight monsters that ravaged the lands they called home. In 1217, a single Templar saved all of London from a dreadful dragon.
In the reign of Henry III, a mighty river dragon crept its way up the Thames to the very gates of London. Its massive claws tore apart half of the boats and ships that entered or left the city and its fiery breath burned the other half to their water lines. No raft was too small to escape notice; no ship was too large to stand up to the beast. Trade on the Thames ground to a halt as vessel after vessel was sunk. In 1217, five good monks, all with keen eyesight, did observe the dragon and record that it was over 40 feet in length and its jaws opened 15 feet wide. No amount of prayers from these and other holy men, as well as those of us who are more base of this earth, could drive the creature away.
Many attempts were made to fight the dragon: fireboats; the finest archers in the Kingdom; poison filled animal carcasses; holy relics; maiden sacrifices. Even the Archbishop of Canterbury himself attempted to drive the fell creature away. All failed, and the cost in human life will never be, exactly, known. When it wasn't terrorizing shipping, it ravaged the country side, leave vast swathes of death and destruction behind it. Templar records show that on June 12, the Grand Master of the order, William de Chartres, ordered a host of knights to travel to London and slay this monster, for the good of all man kind. A knight by the humble name of Amalric was given command of the host and ordered not to return until the dragon was dead.
Amalric, and his host of knights. traveled from their monastery in Anjou over the Channel towards London. So great was their desire to fight the beast, that none who looked upon them hindered them an any way, fearing their wrath. By August 23rd, the Templars arrived in London, and the city cheered at the coming, for all who saw them could see that no force upon this earth could stay them from their task. With only a moment to hand their horses over to stable hands, the Knights marched towards the Thames, right to the water’s edge, to view the dragon: few would go with them. Perhaps it is fair to say that the dragon was not from this earth, but from some netherworld, for all of the Templars took one sight of the beast and fled. All fled except for one: Amalric. No one stayed with him, so we do not know if he showed any fear or not, but long did he stay at the water’s edge, watching the dragon.
When he had filled his brain with the image of the dragon, he turned, and walked away from the water towards the woods. There he fasted and prayed and meditated for four days. On the fourth day, Amalric hunted down and killed, with his bare hands, a stag. With its flesh, he broke his fast. With its sinew, he lashed together logs into a raft and with its hide, he made the raft waterproof. With only his mail, his faith and his courage to protect him, he set the raft onto the Thames, taking with him only one weapon: a sword forged in Jerusalem for his father and passed down to him when he took orders and swore his oath to the Templars. Soon, as Amalric had hoped, the stink of the fresh hide brought the dragon. Soon, he felt the swell of the water disturb his raft as the monster rushed towards him. Did he stand unmoving, or was he shaking in fear? No witness was there to say which was true. In moments the dragon burst from the water and towered over the knight.
High above Amalric did the dread dragon rear it’s foul head. It’s breath teeming with the stench of death and decay. No man witnessed the battle, and not until his deathbed did Amalric confess to the details, of which I will now relay to you. As the dragon reared above the knight, he swung his sword at its exposed neck but the fine edge of the blade failed to so much as mark the scales. As the dragon snapped it’s jaws at him, Amalric cut at the monster’s lips, but this only served to anger the monster.
Soon, the bulk of the monster threatened to capsize the small raft, and with one desperate act, Amalric stabbed at one of the dragon's eyes: the blade piercing the red orb and lodging in the skull. The dragon jerked it’s mighty head back, pulling the knight off of his feet and, indeed, off of his raft. It was all Amalric could do to maintain his grip on his sword as the dragon shook his head from side to side, trying to free the mote of steel in it’s eye. Amalric later wrote that he was reminded of the first time he mounted a horse; far larger and meaner than a novice should ever have attempted. He mused that for all of that horse’s fury of being saddled by a child, for all it’s bucking, biting and shaking, it was nothing compared to the fury of the dragon.
Why the dragon did not use it’s mighty talons to pluck Amalric and his sword off is not known. Perhaps the pain was too much to allow it to think rationally. Or perhaps it had never felt pain before and did not know how to cope with it. Whatever the reason, Amalric managed to heave his body fully upon the snout of the dragon and away from its snapping and biting teeth. Using all of his strength, Amalric forced the sword deeper and deeper into the dragon’s eye socket and closer to it’s brain. Finally, with one mighty burst of strength, his sword punctured the monster’s brain, and with a last scream and shudder, the monster died and fell into the water.
Amalric, releasing his death grip on his sword, leapt from the falling carcass and into the water. He managed to swim towards shore, and with only the strength to pull himself halfway out of the water, he collapsed into slumber; alone and exhausted. There he was found and, not able to wake him, was carried into London. The streets were silent with onlookers who did not know whether to mourn or to cheer and so, did naught but stand in respect.
Three days passed while Amalric slumbered and once he woke and was told that he was victorious, he asked to be carried to a chapel so that he might pray to Him who gave him the strength and courage to be victorious. Now awake, the city did the city, indeed, the whole of England, rejoice and praise this foreign knight who risked his life and limb to save the inhabitants of London. The streets were thronged with people; children staged mocked battles against paper and straw dragons; every inn and tavern offered free drinks to Amalric, as did the brothels (this was London after all) and many honors and awards were granted but Amalric, true to his faith, refused all honors, awards titles or gifts, claiming that it was only his hand that held the sword, but it was a higher power that guided the blow.
As festive and energetic as the celebrations were, the fickle Londoners soon turned from cheers to jeers, as the monstrous hulk of the dragon still blocked the Thames; preventing any ships from entering or leaving the city. The city blamed Amalric, as if he chose the narrowest portion of the river to slay the beast. Amalric, a man of great humility and spirit, accepted the responsibility and organized every man and ship available. Every rope in London was commandeered and every free hand was drafted and with a Herculean effort, the carcass of the dragon was pulled to one shore and for the first time in months, ships were able to sail both up and down the Thames bringing their cargo to markets both near and far. The only casualty was Amalric’s sword. After beaching the dragon, he attempted to pull the sword from the skull. Either through rust from the water or some noxious liquid from the beast’s brain, the sword was weakened and snapped as it was pulled. Amalric stared at the remains of his father’s sword, it’s blade broken a hand length from the cross guard, and sighed. Witnesses said that they overheard the knight tell himself, "What greater use could your maker have envisioned."
Before Amalric had even returned to London, more complaints were raised in the streets: Some great knight, leaving a rotting corpse of that size. Why every scavenger in the whole of England will soon descend on the city. Amalric knew that he had to solve this problem if he was to return home to France. And so, with his much chastised fellow knights, Amalric cut a large section of meat from the dragon and ate nothing but that meat for half a fortnight with no ill effect.
As the knights were all from Anjou, they taught the English butchers how to use the dragon meat to make sausages of the Anjou variety: andouillettes, muscadets and rillauds. Fifty thousand links of sausages were made with the dragons own intestines. When the intestines ran out, there was still meat left over to feed all of London for a week. Amalric would take no payment for their work, but provisions and a ship bound for home for himself and his companions. But, Amalric’s fellow knights asked the butchers to wrap each sausage in paper printed with the story of the dragon’s death and Amalric’s role in it so that all will remember it. The butchers agreed and soon every printing house in the whole of London was printing out paper wrappers for the sausages.
Amalric died a few years later, not in battle, but after slipping on an icy patch and hitting his head. His death would have been forgotten, recorded only in the monastery’s daily journal, if not for the people of London. For they never forgot the knight who not only saved the city, but fed it as well. And in the Tower of London, under a glass case, lies not only the broken sword of Amalric, but the last, remaining sausage wrapper. On that old, fragile piece of paper is Amalric’s portrait under faded red ink, can still be read the motto created for that long gone knight: "It Was The Beast Of Thames, It Was The Wurst Of Thames."
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This is a rehash of an old, old joke, one that honestly hasn't gotten any funnier since it was first published in Punch Magazine in 1891. While this story is completely fictitious, there is a grain of truth behind it. The Knights Templar did exist and were in London. In 1155, under the reign of Henry II, the Grand Master of Knights Templars visited London to open their Temple, built in Fleet Street. In 1217 there was indeed a Beast that inhabited the Thames river: a sturgeon was caught downstream of London that probably weighed around 850 pounds. [1] Such a beast was the talk of London for years afterwards. There were also other "dragons" that ravaged London. The Dragon of Wantley was a poem about an evil landlord that ravaged his shire. That landlord is only remembered as a terrible beast:
All sorts of cattle this dragon did eat.
Some say he ate up trees,
And that the forests sure he would
Devour up by degrees:
For houses and churches were
to him geese and chickens
He ate all, and left none behind,
but some stones, dear Jack,
that he could not crack,
Which on the hills you will find. [2]
Another story, lost to legend:
Then a great dragon began to ravage the country-side with fire and alone did a single knight take arms against it, and in the end, was the victor. All night long did the raging flames swept o’er the land and the water, and all withered and burned at it’s touch. The dragon had burned up the people’s homes and fields. The city did burn as likewise did the ships and the water-skirted land was devastated. Not ‘til the touch of dawn did the dragon end it’s destruction and retreat to its lair. Great faith did it have in the safety of its hiding place, but it’s faith was to be futile. [3]
My resources do not tell me what this dragon was; was it a metaphor for some rampaging evil, or was it an animal, such as a feral bull that archived fame? We might never know. A third reference, albeit a 19th century one, is the The Lambton Worm. The tale originally was a farce about a left over piece of bait that was thrown down a well. The worm grew and grew until it became a menace:
But the worm got fat an’ growed an’ growed,
An’ growed an aaful size;
He’d greet big teeth, a greet big gob,
An’ greet big goggle eyes.
An’ when at neets he craaled aboot
To pick up bits o’news,
If he felt dry upon the road,
He milked a dozen coos.
[1] The accounts vary in both size and in types of measurements. One reference gives the weight as "xxx stone"; another gives it as "as much as a small horse."
[2] The Dragon of Wantley, quoted from Thomas Percy’s "Reliques of Ancient Poetry"
[3] Geoffrey Of Cambria, "The History of Britain" 1455
Bibliography
Anonymous. The Dragon of Wantley, quoted in Thomas Percy’s Reliques of Ancient Poetry (17th Century)
Shorpe, L. Geoffrey of Cambria’s The History of Britain. London: Penguin Books Ltd. 1981
Anonymous. The London Worm? Punch Magazine. Unknown Volume. 1891.
Image Credits:
Anonymous. The London Worm? Punch Magazine. Unknown Volume. 1891.
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Observations from 2015:
This was a fun story to write and to perform. That year, I was running the fencing tourney and barely managed to make it to the judges before their deadline. I was the last performer of the day: I apologized and told them that my performance would be the worst they would hear all day. Since the judges had not done more than glance at my documentation, they did not get the joke until the end of my performance. I was well pleased that Michael Alewright (a master bard and a nice guy) resorted to not one, but two face palms. The first was from the bad pun the story ended with and the second was from my reminding the judges that I had warned them that my story would be the worst they hear that day. It's audience reactions like that that give me reason to get out of bed each morning.
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