Knucker
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Knucker is a dialect word for a kind of water dragon, living in knuckerholes in Sussex, England. They are said to have been in France and all the way to Iceland. They are serpentine in appearance and having vestigial wings. They attack with venom or constriction. The word comes from the Anglo-Saxon "nicor" which means "water monster" and is used in the poem Beowulf. The most famous lived, according to legend, at Lyminster. Knucker apparently caused a lot of trouble, consuming local livestock and even villagers, and so it was decided to slay the monster. A number of different legends recount how this was done.
Inevitably one version has the dragon slain by a knight-errant after the king of Sussex offered his daughter's hand in marriage to whoever rid them of the beast. Legend says that after marrying the princess the knight settled in Lyminster and his gravestone, the Slayer's Slab can be seen in Lyminster church.
An alternative legend has the dragon outwitted by a local farmer's boy, called Jim Pulk or Jim Puttock, said in some versions to be from Wick, after the Mayor of Arundel offered a reward. He killed the dragon by cooking it a giant poisoned pie, which he took to the knuckerhole on a horse and cart. The dragon ate up pie, horse and cart. When it had expired he returned and cut off its head. In some versions he then dies himself, probably of the same poison he used on the dragon, though this is probably a later addition designed to explain the Slayer's Slab.
[edit] References
- Simpson, Jacqueline (1973). The Folklore Of Sussex. Batsford.
