The Knucker from Beowulf to Jet-Boot Jack
The tale of the Lyminster Knucker has settled into a narrative of a threatening but not too bright monster vanquished by a plucky lad possessed of a ready wit and a poisoned pie. Etymology, which was once used to indicate the Knucker’s hellish origins, is now routinely called upon to prove that the tradition is an Anglo-Saxon survival. Yet the story as we know it is far from ancient and definitive, being first set down less than a century ago. Environmentalists and pagans have adopted the creature as a symbol and a guardian of the landscape, and a couple of neighbouring villages have duly laid claim to a Knucker of their own. Its defeat has been interpreted as a metaphor for the taming of the riverine landscape in which it is said to dwell, and re-enacted with a seventy-foot long carnival figure of papier-mâché and cloth on Brighton beach. Novelists and storytellers have teamed the Knucker up with other local figures, such as the elusive Saint Lewinna and Horsham’s real life Persian Princess, while one local coder incorporated the monster and its habitat into the 8-bit cosmography of a video game. Yet, for all this, the sense of some fluid and ominous survival still persists, hidden beneath the waters of a fenced-off pool.
Speaker Bio:
Paul Holman is the author of Sussex Coils and Loops (Scarlet Imprint, 2026), a book structured around a series of ritual art actions performed at sites in South-East England which have serpent and dragon legends associated with them. His other publications include Tara Morgana (also from Scarlet Imprint) and The Memory of the Drift (Shearsman).
Sussex Coils and Loops: https://scarletimprint.com/publications/p/sussex-coils-and-loops
Paul Holman: http://taramorgana.com/
Curated & Hosted by
Lena Schattenherz Heide-Brennand is a Norwegian lecturer with a master degree in language, culture and literature from the University of Oslo and Linnaeus University. She has been lecturing and teaching various subjects since 1998. Her field of interest and main focus has always been topics that others have considered strange, eccentric and eerie, and she has specialised in a variety of dark subjects linked to folklore, mythology and Victorian traditions and medicine. Her students often point out her thorough knowledge about the subjects she is teaching, in addition to her charismatic appearance. She refers to herself as a performance lecturer and always gives her audience an outstanding experience, Lena’s New Book – Mythical Creatures in Scandinavian Folklore is now available on Amazon
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