The Worm in the Well

by William Mayne

Robin and Meric are the sons of neighbouring squires. One day, on a fishing trip into the woods, Meric disobeys the orders of the witch, Granny Shaftoe, and shortly after, disappears ...Robin misses his friend, but occupies himself telling stories to his son, Alan, and the foundling, Margaret. Before long, these two are old enough to go fishing at the well deep in the woods. They meet Granny Shaftoe along the way, and she tells Alan that he must keep whatever he catches. But when Alan reels in his line, an appalling monster emerges, begging not to be thrown back. Alan, horrified, disregards the monster's pleas, and lets go - and turns to find that Margaret, too, has disappeared. It is soon time for Alan to fight for his king. On his return years later, he is appalled to find that a strange, man-eating worm has laid his town to waste ...

147 pages, Paperback

First published February 14, 2002

About the author

William Mayne was a British writer of children's fiction. Born in Hull, he was educated at the choir school attached to Canterbury Cathedral and his memories of that time contributed to his early books. He lived most of his life in North Yorkshire.

He was described as one of the outstanding children's authors of the 20th Century by the Oxford Companion to Children's Literature, and won the Carnegie Medal in 1957 for A Grass Rope and the Guardian Award in 1993 for Low Tide. He has written more than a hundred books, and is best known for his Choir School quartet comprising A Swarm in May, Choristers' Cake, Cathedral Wednesday and Words and Music, and his Earthfasts trilogy comprising Earthfasts, Cradlefasts and Candlefasts, an unusual evocation of the King Arthur legend.

A Swarm in May was filmed by the Children's Film Unit in 1983 and a five-part television series of Earthfasts was broadcast by the BBC in 1994.

William Mayne was imprisoned for two and a half years in 2004 after admitting to charges of child sexual abuse and was placed on the British sex offenders' register. His books were largely removed from shelves, and he died in disgrace in 2010.

Reviews

[Claire O'Brien · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bought this book second hand because I wouldn’t support the author after his conviction. Reading it objectively without considering the author’s life, it is very well-written in a spacious sense meaning you have to fill in that space with your own imagination and conclusions. It is a very dark and scary book that may trouble some children but as an adult I really enjoyed that aspect. I am interested in the Lambton Worm story which this is apparently inspired by, and it does a great job of dramatising the fishing in the well part and making the worm sinisterly sentient. Granny Shaftoe and her Familiar are well portrayed and I found the Nurse very interesting as a character. If you can stick with the writing style, it’s a good yarn. And I wish I understood Latin so I could get the jokes.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Whisht! Lads, haad yor gobs,
Aa'll tell ye's aall an aaful story, Whisht! Lads, haad yor gobs,
Aa'll tell ye 'boot the worm.

The title of this children's novel brought to mind a ballad a fellow student used to sing many decades ago. He was from County Durham and in amongst his faithful renditions of Dylan songs was a folksy doggerel about the Lambton Worm, a dreadful medieval creature eventually vanquished by the Heir of Lambton (though not before the Heir had brought down a curse on his descendants).

The traditional story is a familiar tale type in the mould of St George and the Dragon, and Perseus and the sea monster. What William Mayne did was to take elements from this and mix them with motifs from other myths, legends and fantasy, yet all in a fashion that can disconcert the unsuspecting reader, whether child or adult.

Ostensibly this is a story of childhood frenemies Robin of the Dale and Meric of the Eastmarch. They go fishing at a spring (don't imagine a twee wishing well, however) only to abandon a strange creature which they have caught -- an act which will have lasting consequences, for they have ignored the advice of the local witch, Granny Shaftoe.

In the first of several time shifts we also meet the offspring of Robin and Meric, namely Allan and Margaret, who have been caught up in subsequent ramifications. There are geographical shifts too as we meet the males at different times variously in England or the Holy Land (for this is during the time of the Crusades). You will by now have guessed that the 'worm' in the well grows to be a carnivorous monster devastating the countryside.

So far so familiar. But Mayne was always an unconventional storyteller and so we immediately find ourselves in unfamiliar territory. Deliberate anachronisms, shifting points of view, time-hopping, poetic turns of phrase, asides and black humour all combine to make this a rollercoaster ride. Identities are hidden and revealed, the future is both suggested and occluded, and Granny Shaftoe's strange shape-shifting familiar adds to the general unsettling feel of the narrative.

Will this children's fiction bring us to a satisfying conclusion or will the horror prevail? Luckily the anachronisms (unexpected objects like safety pins and tins of baked beans) and ridiculous figures (particularly the Nurse, an escapee from Romeo and Juliet perhaps) allow for rapid changes of tone, mitigating the frightening passages.

What I appreciated about Mayne's fiction, and what may possibly go above the heads of younger readers, were the subtler allusions and borrowings from other fictions and traditions. The Robin Hood tales, for example, furnish the Lord of Dale's name -- Robin -- and his son Allan (from Alan a Dale, though the Northumbrian placename Allendale may have contributed); the Arthurian legends yield the sword in the lake motif; Jacobus de Vorágine’s Golden Legend tells of St Margaret of Antioch who survived being swallowed by a dragon; and a few others.

I enjoyed this rendering of the well-known dragon-slaying theme for its wild unpredictability, though there'll be many who can't (or won't) appreciate such niceties. Awesome or awful? If you come across this then at least you will have been forewarned!

[Nick Swarbrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bizarre, quirky: this reimagined version of the English worm-dragon legends (think the Lambton Worm/The Lair of the White Worm rather than Beowulf’s wyrm or Smaug) deals with a shadow land of old rivalries and half-forgotten friendships. Two young Lordlings pass on their unresolved enmities to their sons, the story coming to a climax in choices about belonging and love. To go into more detail without spoilers is hard: the resolution is at best full of symbol and metaphor, and the reader has to keep her/his wit as sharp as the sword that is a recurring theme throughout the book.

Mayne is an author whose magisterial command of landscapes and acute choice of phrase makes him often a compelling storyteller. Here his pace is measured and rich, full of deliberate anachronism to remind us of T H White’s Sword in the Stone and with lines that stay with the reader: “The birds outside began to sound natural;” “she was her own lifetime old;” or “A great, careless petal dropped clanging from a wild rose.” And the image of the worm, growing in monstrous rapaciousness over the years, is an image of horror and spot-on accuracy for festering animosity.

Does the ending work? I am unsure: Mayne has set himself here (as in other books) a difficult task of resolving clashes between symbol and narrative consistency, a territory owned more recently by Jeanette Winterson, and it needs a careful eye to see what he is up to. But certainly a wonderful exploration of a classic British folktale.

[Dave Morris · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's rare that fantasy is actually fantastical, which is why this otherwise slight story gets an extra star. It's moving, highly imaginative, and told in a heightened poetical prose style that's a close cousin to Bradbury's.

There are also plenty of sprinklings of humour, most of which worked for me but I wasn't so keen at the occasional silly anachronisms (baked beans, for example) which I know are intended to make the dolts at the back of the classroom snigger but that struck me as childish even when I was a child.

What interested me most was the relationship between Meric (one of the most outstandingly difficult characters in fiction) and Robin. Unfortunately that fizzles out as the story is more driven by plot than character.

I suppose I have to mention Mayne's criminal conviction, because we live in an age when many readers can't separate a work from its creator. (See "childish", above.) The Guardian reports: "Mayne's books were largely deliberately removed from shelves from 2004 onwards" which is a great shame because it deprives future generations of children of an original and gifted author, described in court in 2004 as "the greatest living writer of children's books in English". With the likes of Geraldine McCaughrean, Susan Cooper, and Alan Garner still around I don't think that was true, but kids should be free to make up their own minds.

[Jess · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'd like to destroy every single copy of this book. It was so awful - and I barely read up to halfway. And why did I read it? Because it was the only book I could get my hands on in school for a couple of weeks. I really wish I hadn't bothered. The writing style was so horrendous that I honestly didn't understand what the heck was going on, and I wanted to throw it at the nearest wall. Urgh. And it's meant for children!!!! How the heck- I'm going to stop now, before I ACTUALLY go insane.