WHAT IS A KNUCKER?

A knucker was a dragon.  It was the name given to dragons in Sussex, England.  A particular knucker was known as the Knucker Hole Monster, which was said to have lived at Lyminster.  It had a brace of wings and four legs.  There are various stories about how it was killed.  One is that it was given a huge plum pudding, which caused it great indigestion.  This was probably not helped by the fact that it scoffed the horse and cart that brought the pudding to it as well.  Its head was cut off by Jim Puttock.

Jim Puttock's gravestone used to be in Lyminster churchyard, but it is now in the church itself.

We don't know what lay behind this story.  The gravestone is evidence, but by no means proof, that the slaying of some factual creature lies behind it.  With many retellings, a large and exotic lizard or an imported crocodile might grow into a dragon.  Some knight or merchant might well have brought such a creature into England.  Then again, it may have been some cryptid which we cannot now identify.