A wild young fellow was the heir of Lambton, the fine estate and hall by the side of the swift-flowing Wear.  Not a Mass would he hear in Brugeford Chapel of a Sunday, but a-fishing he would go.  And if he did not haul in anything, his curses could be heard by the folk as they went by to Brugeford.

Well, one Sunday morning he was fishing as usual, and not a salmon had risen to him, his basket was bare of roach or dace.  And the worse his luck, the worse grew his language, till the passers-by were horrified at his words as they went to listen to the Mass-priest.

At last young Lambton felt a mighty tug at his line.  “At last,” quoth he, “a bite worth having!” and he pulled and he pulled, till what should appear above the water but a head like an elf’s, with nine holes on each side of its mouth.  But still he pulled till he had got the thing to land, when it turned out to be a Worm of hideous shape.  If he had cursed before, his curses were enough to raise the hair on your head.

“What ails thee, my son?” said a voice by his side, “and what hast thou caught, that thou shouldst stain the Lord’s Day with such foul language?”

Looking round, young Lambton saw a strange old man standing by him.

“Why, truly,” he said, “I think I have caught the devil himself.  Look you and see if you know him.”

But the stranger shook his head, and said, “It bodes no good to thee or thine to bring such a monster to shore.  Yet cast him not back into the Wear; thou has caught him, and thou must keep him,” and with that away he turned, and was seen no more.

The young heir of Lambton took up the gruesome thing, and, taking it off his hook, cast it into a well close by, and ever since that day that well has gone by the name of the Worm Well.

For some time nothing more was seen or heard of the Worm, till one day it had outgrown the size of the well, and came forth full-grown.  So it came forth from the well and betook itself to the Wear.  And all day long it would lie coiled round a rock in the middle of the stream, while at night it came forth from the river and harried the country side.  It sucked the cows’ milk, devoured the lambs, worried the cattle, and frightened all the women and girls of the district, and then it would retire for the rest of the night to the hill, still called the Worm Hill, on the north side of the Wear, about a mile and a half from Lambton Hall.

This terrible visitation brought young Lambton, of Lambton Hall, to his senses.  He took upon himself the vows of the Cross, and departed for the Holy Land, in the hope that the scourge he had brought upon his district would disappear.  But the grisly Worm took no heed, except that it crossed the river and came right up to Lambton Hall itself where the old lord lived on all alone, his only son having gone to the Holy Land.  What to do?  The Worm was coming closer and closer to the Hall; women were shrieking, men were gathering weapons, dogs were barking and horses neighing with terror.  At last the steward called out to the dairy maids, “Bring all your milk hither,” and when they did so, and had brought all the milk that the nine kye of the byre had yielded, he poured it all into the long stone trough in front of the Hall.