The Tilbury Serpent

Serpent

Back in the mists of time a serpent washed up with the tide at Tilbury. The local folk don’t mention the serpent killing people but it ate animals like sheep and cattle. The people in the villages and towns around were scared and didn’t go near the waters edge. After a time the serpent just vanished during the night. Letting the area get back to normal.

Dragon

Legend, has it that in the 1400s, a dragon with scales for skin, and fearsome to look at, terrorised the local village of Bures, until it moved onto the next village of Wormingford where they say the local knight killed it.

Serpent

The last tale I would like to tell is that of a great serpent the Barbary merchants brought to this country from the Mediterranean. Once they moored in London the serpent escaped and made its way down the Thames, “sounds familiar” and came ashore, but instead of staying on the estuary it made its way to a place between East Horndon and Herongate where it took up residence, happily eating people. Sir James Tyrell decided that he needed to dispose of this great creature and so Early one morning (without waking his wife) he dressed in his armour and on leaving the house pick up a mirror and hung it round his neck, one of his knaves asked why the mirror, his reply was that all everyone knows serpents are very vain. The knight reach the serpent and called the animal to come out as the serpent was hungry and already thinking of something to eat, it saw the knight in the morning sun and rose up for battle when it saw itself in the mirror and stopped to admire itself, at this point Sir James Tyrell stabbed the serpent then cut its head off, taking this prize home to his wife. Its not recorded if she was pleased or not…