Simonside Dwarfs

Common card · No. 317048

The Simonside Dwarfs, also known as Brownmen, Bogles and Duergar, are in English folklore a race of dwarfs, particularly associated with the Simonside Hills of Northumberland, in northern England. Their leader was said to be known as Heslop. In Frederick Grice's telling of the traditional story The Duergar in Folk Tales of the North Country (1944), one of them is described as being short, wearing a lambskin coat, moleskin trousers and shoes, and a hat made of moss stuck with a feather. The legendary dwarfs of Simonside were mentioned in the local newspaper, the Morpeth Gazette, in 1889, and in Tyndale's Legends and Folklore of Northumbria, 1930. They delighted in leading travellers astray, especially after dark, often carrying lighted torches to lead them into bogs, rather like a Will-o'-the-wisp. The menacing creatures would often disappear at dawn. The word duergar is likely to be derived from the dialectal words for "dwarf" on the Anglo-Scottish border which include dorch, dwerch, duerch...

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