the Dragon of Wantley was a TAX DODGE the whole time (Wharncliffe, Yorkshire)

Right this one's brilliant because folklorists basically cracked it. There's an old broadside ballad, 'The Dragon of Wantley', printed up in the 1600s, very rude and funny — monstrous dragon at Wantley (Wharncliffe, near Sheffield in South Yorks) eating children, trees, houses, and a knight called M……