The Laidly Worm of Spindleston Heugh, also known as The Laidly Worm of Bamborough, is a Northumbrian ballad about a princess who changed into a dragon (the "laidly worm" of the title).
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In the Kingdom of Northumbria, a kind king in Bamburgh Castle takes a beautiful but cruel witch as his queen after the death of his wife. The King's son, Childe Wynd, has gone across the sea but his daughter, Princess Margaret, is turned into a dragon by the witch.
The enchantment used is usually:
Later in the story, the prince returns and, instead of fighting the dragon, kisses it, restoring the princess to her natural form. He then turns the witch-queen into a toad and becomes king himself.
In Joseph Jacob's version, the dragon Princess Margaret becomes is appeased by putting aside seven cows for her per day. The prince her brother therefore hears of it and comes for her, despite his stepmother's attempt to keep him away, both magical and by force of arms. In other respects the story matches that stated above.
The story has a lot in common with the Icelandic Hjálmþés saga ok Ölvis.[1][2]
There is no authoritative version of the ballad. Robert Lambe "discovered' it as fragments, which makes sense if it had generated variants over the centuries since Duncan Frasier had originally penned it. Lambe was an expert on the origins and meanings of ancient obscure words, and helped track down the meanings of some of the words found in the ballads in the "Reliques".
The Laidly Worm never made it into the "Reliques" but was reprinted in various other books since its discovery. He sent the fragments to his friend Bishop Percy, another antiquarian. Percy had embarked on a British Empire spanning project to collect all the oral and written lore and ballads, which he assembled into a volume called "Reliques of Ancient English Poetry".
After Richard the Lionheart was released in exchange for a hostage, the hostage took with him to Germany a copy of an Arthurian romance involving a snake maiden. In the 1190s Zatikhoeven rewrote this tale as "Lanzelet" and renamed the Irish lady Elidia.
If The Laidly Worm o' Spindleston Haugh is a ballad written by Duncan Frasier, Frasier may have heard "Lanzelet" or some daughter of the parent loathly lady narrative, such as Kempion.