Interesting stuff Guest..

Further to serpents and dragons, at Wormingford in Essex, we have the story of how a pet crocodile was brought back from the crusades, escaped into the eponymous ford and started well, killing sheep and people and stuff basically. Apparently the villagers were so dismayed by the dragon that they started offering it virgins for tea in an attempt to mollify it's blood-lust (good old cosy rustics - echoes of TWM her methinks!). When the villagers eventually ran out of virgins, they called upon a knight to dispatch the beasty, which he duly did without too much fuss.

Later earth-mysteries have been appended to the original dragon-myth, and the hill is said to be home to a 'dragon line' that Smorg-like coils in slumber around the lonely hill-top. The location, is quite atmospheric, and even mildly forbidding. Though I've not visited it with dowsing rods myself, to see if a dragon really sleeps there.

I rather like to imagine, that if there wasn't a dragon *before* the villages started making their blood sacrifices, then there very probably was one afterwards... The village Church has some interesting stuff on the story anyhoo. Though I don't know if there are any village traditions associated to it.