Beowulf, a long poem written sometime around 1000 CE (give or take a century or so), at one point mentions a monster named Nickera, who lives in a lake. In the poem it appears that “Nickera” is the monster’s name, but actually “nicker” (or nicor) was an Old English word for any sort of imaginary creature living in the water.
The “nickers” in old England were nothing you’d want to mess around with. There was one who lived in some nondescript pool of water in Lyminster (which is near Arundel, in Sussex, if that’s any help), and it not only lived in the water but would sometimes emerge — and then it could fly, too. It killed livestock and people until a wandering knight vanquished it in order to win the hand of the king’s daughter. If this sounds like the legend of St. George and the Dragon, well, it’s a pretty common story line.
There’s a better story, though. Jim Pulk was a local fellow who was tired of the ravages of the nicker, so he baked a big pie — and filled it with poison. He put it in his cart, hitched up his horses, and trotted out to the water. The pools where the nickers lived, by the way, never dried up (even though it’s never been 100% clear just where they were located), and they were also bottomless, and never froze in the winter. Anyway, the nicker, motivated, we suppose, by the pie, emerged, ate it, and that was the end of the nicker. Unfortunately for Jim Pulk, though, the monster also ate his horses AND the cart. To make matters worse, Jim himself somehow swallowed some of the poison, and he died too.
The legends of the nickers lived on, particularly in the south of England. The word “Nixie,” which is German for some kind of elf that lived in the water, is likely the word’s origin. There’s also “Nickel” — a German goblin who lived in mines (that’s where the metal “nickel” got its name). And for that matter, “Old Nick” is a traditional name for the devil, and that might come from the same roots, too.
Sometime in the past thousand years or so, “nicker” became “knucker”, which can still be heard today in some south-England dialects. People don’t generally admit to believing in water monsters any more (except during Shark Week, of course), so “knucker” is most often used for “knucker holes” — which are pools of water. Which are bottomless. And never dry up. And never freeze in the winter. And you really don’t want to find out what might be living in them.
