There he was, in a cold and dank cell, shared with insects, rats and vermin and no doubt decorated with a cobweb or two. Any little beastie which dangled down to greet him would have looked gentle compared with Dolomedes plantarius, the Lopham raft spider living in the Fen between Lopham and Redgrave, his home villages. If he had ever come across one of these, it would have been the scariest moment of his life so far. The biggest spider in the UK, would not be officially discovered until 1956 but you can bet it was lurking around when the Does went to cut the rushes for their thatch.
Was Ephraim a conservationist, observing in quiet fascination, a shrieker, trembling in desperate terror or was he a squash and stamp monster, flinging them to the ground and grinding them into oblivion with his heel?
Lopham linen was woven in a special spider web pattern some years before the spider was discovered, so it was certainly around.
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