strange news out of essex

Though no byline is on the pamphlet it is usually attributed to poet and biographer William Winstanley (Poor Robin’s Almanack, England’s Worthies), the bulletin published some months later gives the account of a sighting of a dragon, a winged serpent on this day in 1668 that attacked villagers on this day before disappearing into the forest. “The place of his abode and where he hath been oftentimes seen, is called Henham, but most commonly Henham on the Mount, the town standing upon a hill, having many fair farms and granges belonging to it, in one of which named The Lodge, near to a wood called Birch-wood, by reason of the many birches growing there, in a pasture-ground close by the same, hath this monstrous Serpent been often seen upon the sides of a Bank, beaking and stretching himself out upon the same at such time as Sol did parch the earth with his refulgent beams.” Later described as a beast nine feet in length and with tiny wings which wouldn’t bare its weight, the author nonetheless calls it flying.