The Lambton Worm
The small strange thing tossed down a well — which grew, unwatched, to the size of the damage it would do.
A young lord, fishing on a Sunday, pulls up a small strange creature and, not liking the look of it, tosses it down a well. Years pass. In the dark, unwatched, it grows — and emerges as the Lambton Worm, the monstrous serpent that coils around the hill and terrorizes the valley for a generation. England's north kept several of these 'worm' legends; together they state one law without mercy: everything discarded rather than dealt with descends into the foundations and grows at the rate of its neglect.
The SGE Reading
Shadow's growth law: 'out of sight' is a nursery, not a solution. The well feeds what the daylight refused.
Canon Resonance
The cautionary twin of the eggs: what is thrown away grows crooked; what is kept and greeted grows true.
A Micro-Practice
Name one thing you 'threw down the well' this year. Retrieve it this week — look at it once, deliberately, in daylight.
Sources & Respect
Northumbrian ballad and legend of the Lambton Worm.