Guthlac of Crowland resided in the area of England known as the Fens, which at the time were extremely swampy and marshy. While much of the area's natural ruggedness has since dissipated, it was then perhaps the most dangerous area of the British Isles. One particularly troublesome spot was known as the Neck of Elmer, the traversing of which claimed the lives of many a pilgrim in Guthlac's time.
Elmer's Neck was a narrow strip of land between bogs that lay on a popular pilgrimage route, running approximately between the towns of Crowland and Lincoln. The route had been in use for long before the advent of Christianity, as pagans would often take particularly annoying fellow villagers for a walk down the route before drowning them in nearby bogs. While the risk of bog drowning had subsided, there was still the matter of the English Swamp Crocodile. This vicious creature was typically gray in color and difficult to distinguish from a mossy stone laying by the side of the path. As a young man, Guthlac studied the ways of this loathsome beast and learned to get the best of it. He dedicated himself to leading pilgrims to safety, but he was only one man.
In the year 702, he petitioned the King Æthelred of Mercia for assistance, and the king began one of the most ambitious agricultural projects in the history of Anglo-Saxon England: the Draining of the Bogs. From that point on, the land was gradually reclaimed for use by farmers, and residents of the Fens have looked to Guthlac as their patron ever since.
