Erratic K said:
I'm not sure how this:
story of a Worm and a Falchion, Lewis Carroll would be familiar with the story, therefore Jabberwocky is based on the story of the Worm, therefore the Vorpal sword is based on the falchion . Maybe I'm just a sceptic. Maybe if E
I think the point is, that even in hoary olde England, there aren't too many major estates which were founded on the basis of a dragon slaying, and of that small number, probably not too many which still had the 800 year old wyrm slaying sword trotted out every few years to ceremmoniously commemorate the event. This sort of thing makes a pretty big impact on a kid growing up in the area, especialy in an era before TV, video games, or D&D.
If all that took place in a small town where you grew up, and you subsequently wrote a famous couplet about a dragon and a sword, I would probably make the same assumption.
Having said all that, when you come right down to it, it is indeed rank speculation.
incidently, cryptozoologists and others have also rankly speculated that the sockburn 'wyrm' may have actually been a particularly large and ferocious (and apparently stinky) wild boar.
There have been documented incidents of individual 'rogue' animals such as wolves and lions eating rather shocking numbers (scores) of people as recently as the 19th century, and we know that some quite mighty and ferocious subspecies of varmints became extinct in Europe only recently, such as the infamous Aurochs.
DB
