Back in fifth grade, I order two books from the scholastic reader's catalog, Prehistoric Beasts and Monsters. These were both part of the Scholastic Funfact series. It also included one of Ghosts, which I saw in a bookstore (I remember that one for a color painting of a black spectral hound with a single huge red eye!), and another on dinosaurs. The Beasts book was essentially on prehistoric mammals.
It was the Monsters book that was by far the best, with truly chilling paintings of mythical creatures, paranormal monsters, and one section devoted to dinosaurs. It is the section on mythical dragons though, that is of interest here. There is a cryptic passage therein that Ken Ham would approve, stating intriguingly that some medieval depictions of dragons "look almost like dinosaurs. This is very strange because the legends about dragons were invented long before anyone knew of the existence of dinosaurs." There was another dinosaur book at the time that showed a knight in armor encountering a plesiosaur by the sea, and the caption read "medieval dragons may have been plesiosaurs."
Most, however, resembled winged or wingless worms.
Scholastic's Monsters was where I first read of the legend of the Lampton Worm. I have enountered other tellings of the tale since. There are slight variations, as with most legends, and some leave out that he wore spiked armor, saying that he merely fought the beast in midriver, hacking it with his sword. There is even a catchy song recounting the legend in the movie version of Bram Stoker's Lair of the White Worm. I remember my first reading of the tale right way, hearing that.
As the above says, John Lampton caught the beast while fishing, and it's very notable that Lampton was playing hooky from Church at the time. Slightly more detailed accounts mention that he (correctly) recognized his catch as an evil omen, and faced the fact that he was not spending Sunday mornings as the Lord wanted him too. Lampton repented, and thereafter began attending church regularly. It was this incident, in fact, that spurred Lampton to become a Crusader as an adult. Even so, his youthful folly appeared to grown and fester, at last growing monstrous and terrorizing the countryside (a metaphor perhaps, about how past sins can catch up with us?). Lampton heroically defeats the spawn of his youthful idleness and saves the country from the ravages of the worm. But, at least according to an account I read on Karl Shuker's website, the witch who gave him the advice also warns him that he must kill the first thing he sees upon returning, lest his family suffer a curse that claim the lives of each heir (there's plenty of versions of that throughout folklore, and even the Bible!). So of course, he encounters someone dear to him, in this case his father, but can't bring himself to do it, so he kills his best hunting dog instead. The fates aren't satisfied, it seems, and all his descendants suffer tragic deaths. So even though Lampton repented and became a hero, the stain of his youthful transgression never quite goes away. It was him not attending church that caused this entire problem! How very easily all this mess might have been avoided.
The moral, in case you missed it, is this: the Lord wants you in His house, worshipping Him on Sunday morning. So here's a hint:---go to church!!
Note here that Lampton is not at all like Kevin from the movie Warlock. Lampton willfully shirked off church attendance, unlike Kevin who'd been innocently led astray by his father, one reason I strongly disagree with the movie's punishing Kevin with death for his lack of piousness. Lampton, by contrast, grows up and becomes a hero.
And on the subject of church attendance, I confess to playing hookey from church many times as a young child--sometimes to watch a silly TV show! My own folks, while not being overtly religious, disapproved, and encouraged me to attend. I definitely knew better, even though church was often boring, and I understood little of the importance of what was said. I remember one morning I stayed home for some trivial reason, while my mom sung in the choir. That afternoon I asked my dad to take my to the zoo in South Bend. He took me, and guess what? The rain started pouring as soon as we got there!!
Later, I told my mom that I thought God had punished me for not being in church that day. She just laughed it off and said that God would have to have billions of secretaries to keep track of what everyone does and adminster punishment. Maybe one of the billionth millionth secretaries noticed I wasn't there "Tony Phillips...was not in church....punishment: rain as soon as he gets to the zoo."
Looking back I see that she was wrong, of course. This is humanizing picture of God if ever there was one. God doesn't need secretaries. he doesn't take coffee breaks. He can answer the every single person simultaneously, because he literally is everywhere. He controls, or can control, every single cell in the universe. He may even have created billions of entire universes! We can only be reconciled to Him through Christ--but if you're a Christian, you're already well aware of this!
But was that rain really His punishment for not being in church that morning? In this life, at least, I guess I'll never know.
Here's the entire page from the book, that also features the legend of the wooly dragon:
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