SOURCE: "Allison Gross" (The English and Scottish popular Ballads, 1882-1898) by Francis James Child

DESCRIPTION: "She’s turnd her right and roun about/An thrice she blaw on a grass-green horn/An she sware by the meen and the stars abeen/That she’d gar me rue the day I was born/Then out has she taen a silver wand/An she’s turnd her three times roun an roun/She’s mutterd sich words till my strength it faild/An I fell down senceless upon the groun/She’s turnd me into an ugly worm," ("Allison Gross" by Francis James Child)

NOTES: Using this magical spell, Allison Gross, the ugliest witch in the North Country, turns a young man who spurns her, into a dragon. He is chained to a tree and on Saturday nights his sister comes and combs his hair. The young man is freed by the Seelie Court, good faeries, one Halloween.

HISTORY: The name worm for a dragon is from the Germanic languages. The Lambton Worm is probably the most famous.