Mythical Beasts of England

"And did those feet in ancient time

Walk upon England's mountains green?

And was the holy Lamb of God

On England's pleasant pastures seen?"

Well, in answer to William Blake's question penned in his unofficial English national anthem, who knows? maybe? Probably not though. It is a land steeped in stories and legends, but unfortunately there are far more tales of claws gracing those pleasant pastures and mountains green than there are of sandal-clad messiahs. Blake certainly has my vote for England's national anthem, he was no stranger to drawing a beastie or demon himself, and I would enjoy the strangeness of England's national anthem being named after a contentious region in the Middle East, America could follow suit and crank Toto's "Africa" - You can continue this list in your own time, points for the most innapropriate. Blake also shares the same view of the "dark satanic mills" (mentioned in verse 2) that pulled people from their pastoral homelands into the crowded, polluted, cramped industrial cities to play a wonderfully fun game called capitalism, which I'm sure we can all agree has been a smashing success, with absolutely no downsides. What can we say except Pink Floyd warned you. Luddites get a bad press, and in these days of rampant AI stealing copyrighted works of art to churn out shiny slop, and add further to the shocking state of the job market, we are overdue a comeback. If you need help with the rebrand guys, holla at ya boi.

Sorry, wrong meeting.

We're here to talk about fun and strange stories of Mythical Beasts, not to try and remodel the world. But my word it's ready for an overhaul, right guys?

Sorry, sorry....... Mythical beasts!

We've included a couple from the original "Mythical beasts of the British and Irish Isles" map, because, well, there are only so many times I can read someone shouting about "missing" the Lambton worm or Black Shuck in the comments section. Hopefully, one day we will release a book and get to talk about more of the beasties that lose out on the battle for space.

Thanks as ever for your support and for keeping this project going. To pick up a copy of the new map please visit the shop.

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All the best

Neil and Charley

Update- I’m working on book proposals at the moment, so I’ve kept some stories offline to save them for the books (and to stop anyone pinching all the hard work before they’re published!). If you’d like to know when the books are ready, just pop your name on the mailing list.

In the meantime, here are a few of my favourite beasties and legends -

Bella Sheephead

I'm so glad we get to start here as it contains one of those delightful "why?!?" moments that make up so many great folklore tales. So.... in beautiful Cumbria, replete with its majestic lakes and rolling hills we have the lovely Bella (or Belle) a sweet rural girl, who adores her beloved lamb. We can leave right here and rest assured nothing bad is going to happen to that lamb right? I mean, why would it? It's not like the lamb is a symbolic reference to innocence and gentleness, right? Well..... obviously the lamb is killed, torn apart by a fox to be precise and discovered by a distraught Bella. And here we get the "why?!?" moment. I think we can all agree that when you discover your beloved pet torn to shreds there is only one thing you can do. Drink its blood. You were thinking of burying it and mourning for a bit? What's wrong with you sicko? No, the correct response is clearly to drink its blood.

Predictably this strange act had an even stranger effect on sweet, though slightly bizarre Bella, and on the next full moon she transformed into a beast that was half human and half sheep (a "were-sheep" if you will). Bella was now filled with cravings for yummy, yummy sheep blood, and she proceeded to slaughter her way through the local herds before her palate matured sufficiently to gore, mutilate and eat people.

Innocence dead, gentleness given to slaughter, you have become the thing you hate. I think Nietzsche would smugly remind Bella of his famous quote, "Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster". In Cumbria, the abyss was having a good old oggle.

Black Shuck

One of England's most famous legends, and even though it was on the first map if I didn't include it on this one I knew the comments section would be an ordeal of people yelling "Black Shuck", "You missed Shuck", "call this a map of mythical beasts, hasn't even got Black Shuck, do your research!". And well, I haven't got time for that, so here is, yet again Black Shuck. I'd be more tetchy about it but...well...it's Shuck innit.

I was tempted to include one of the other Black dogs: the Barghest, Padfoot, Shock, Gytrash, and so on. There are so many black dogs in British folklore, but Shuck is the poster boy, the A-lister. I won't get into the description because we're all pretty familiar, and if not look at the illustration, tis why I do them. Instead, I will hit you with Shucks' greatest hit, his Superbowl, his swansong, his crescendo.

The day is August the 4th 1577, Parishioners are singing Hymns, saying their prayers, and generally churching it up at Holy Trinity Church in Blythburgh when as the sound of thunder crashes, the door is smashed open, there stands Black Shuck. He runs straight up the aisle past the congregation and mauls a man and boy to death in front of the horrified onlookers. As this is happening, the steeple collapses through the roof, Shuck turns and runs out leaving scorch marks as he goes, which can still be seen to this day. Inexplicably, somehow "back in black" by ACDC is playing. To up the stakes, he repeats the same process at ST Marys Church in Bungay, earning him press, infamy and a few articles for momma shuck to stick on the fridge.

Gurt Worm

This dragon low-key terrorised the area of Shervage Woods, and by this I mean it hadn't eaten people, keeping its diet strictly to sheep and ponies, which I believe is the dragon equivalent of veganism. Still, it was a big ruddy dragon, and people had become pretty apprehensive to go check on the whortleberries, which the villagers enjoyed so much, and would make wonderful tarts for the upcoming village festival. At this point it's starting to sound like an episode of the Smurfs - The story proceeds to get a little less Smurf-like before getting back to a very cartoonish ending.

The villagers sent some men to see what was happening and maybe sort the dragon out, well obviously they didn't come back, the first ones never do. Anyway as quite often happyens a woodcutter turns up at the village looking for work. Traditionally, woodcutters have a pretty good track record with dealing with beasts in woods, so an old lady suggests with no ulterior motive, that he might have luck fetching wood from Shervage Woods, and oh by the way whilst you are there would you be so kind as to check how the whortleberries are coming along. Shady, shady lady.

The woodcutter heads up to the woods and does what his name implies he would do. When he became tired and hungry from his manly endeavours he sat down to rest on a log to have his lunch. Here is where it gets back to cartoony, as it turns out the log was not a log, but was in fact the dragon. When it starts to move under him, the woodcutter jumps up and without hesitation swings his axe down splitting the dragon clean in 2. The dragon doesn't die immediately, but interestingly like a headless chicken runs around for a while in gory horror. The 2 parts ran in 2 separate directions to neighbouring towns before finally dropping dead, and a bloody half dragon must have been a startling and confusing arrival for those townspeople.

When the woodcutter arrives back in the village, he likely had some choice words for the manipulative old dear, before ultimately settling into his role as hero, soaking up the praise of the villagers, and likely the adoration of some Smurfette figure. The villagers made whortleberry tarts, had their festivities; all is fine in the Smurfdom.

Mersey Mermaid

also known as the Black Rock Mermaid or the Lease Mermaid, but I prefer "Mersey Mermaid" because I enjoy a nice bit of alliteration and it conjures images of a mermaid with scouse brow and rollers in. Apologies, there will be no more terrible stereotypes of Liverpudlians.

The Mersey mermaid is a strange tale, in that the mermaid both saves and brings about the demise of the sailor. In a nutshell, there was a sailor lost at sea, all his shipmates had died and his ship was aimlessly buffeting around. A mermaid boards the vessel, and seeing his salvation he asks her to save him, apparently speaking first gives him some power over her and she agrees on the condition that he is to meet her again when he is safe and recovered. The sailor rather than facing certain doom smartly agrees and is handed a Jack Sparrow-esque magical compass; immediately, the violent weather subsides and he is able to navigate back to dry land.

When he is home and has returned to full health, he keeps true to his work and the 2 meet. This time she speaks first, regaining the power, somehow. With the power on her side, she sings in that hypnotic, alluring way that mermaids are want to do, and takes back the compass, places a ring on his finger and leaves saying she will see him again soon. He then dies 5 days later, and that's kind of where it ends.

It is a strange tale for a mermaid motif, it doesn't fit with the majority of mermaid tales which usually entail wrecking ships, endangering sailors, or enticing some posh lusty lord into stuffing his life up. The main theory seems to be that this tale relates to power, potentially tied to British naval power at the time, but I'm not so sure. To me the Mersey Mermaid seems to be functioning as a psychopomp, a harbinger of the sailors' death, maybe he was due to die on that boat, but gaining the leverage was permitted to return ashore, on that second meeting she would not make the same mistake, and she regains her power and seals his fate with a ring- a bit like an aquatic Final Destination, his time was due, he cheated it, death follows him and inevitably he meets his end. Who knows for sure, not I. It is a curious one and it still garners affection from the locals with sculptures being installed in recent years.

Renwick Cockatrice

Well, it's a pretty straightforward tale of a Cockatrice that appeared in Cumbria as a church was being pulled down and was defeated by a valiant hero who stabbed it through the heart with a Rowan branch. Rowan being a type of wood with supernatural ties in English folklore, and stabbing things through the heart being a non-magical, non-location-based way to kill, well pretty much anything. Except..... There is some disagreement about whether it was an "actual" Cockatrice; there are reports that it was just a bat. And I know what you're thinking "well some bats are pretty big, after a few day-drinks in the park and a bit of sunstroke, we could all make that mistake", and I would remind you that the biggest UK bat is the Noctule and is barely a palm-full. Suddenly, our hero looks a bit less heroic and more like a very disturbed individual playing a horrifying game of cricket on a building site.

Also featured on the map:

Black Annis

Bomere Fish

Brown Man of the Muirs

Elder Mother

Eythorpe Little Witches

Filey Dragon

Gog and Magog

Gooseberry Wife

Griffin

Hagg Worm

Highclere Grampus

Hyter Sprite

Jenny Greenteeth

Knucker

Lambton Worm

Lantern Man

Mordiford Dragon

Old Cockern

Penhill Giant

Piskie

Stratford Lion

Thanet Sea Monster

Tiddy Mun

Veasta

Yallery Brown