Arthurian romances; Lady of the Lake (Legendary character) -- Romances
'"Brown Dwarf, that o'er the muirland strays,
Thy name to Keeldar tell!"--
"The Brown Man of the Muirs, who stays
Beneath the heather-bell.
'"'T is sweet beneath the heather-bell
To live in autumn brown;
And sweet to hear the lav'rock's swell,
Far, far from tower and town.
'"But woe betide the shrilling horn,
The chase's surly cheer!
And ever that hunter is forlorn
Whom first at morn I hear."'
"The poetical picture here given of the Duergar corresponds exactly with
the following Northumberland legend, with which I was lately favored by
my learned and kind friend, Mr. Surtees of Mainsforth, who has bestowed
indefatigable labor upon the antiquities of the English Border counties.
The subject is in itself so curious, that the length of the note will, I
hope, be pardoned:
'I have only one record to offer of the appearance of our Northumbrian
Duergar. My narratrix is Elizabeth Cockburn, and old wife of Offerton,
in this country, whose credit, in a case of this kind, will not, I hope,
be much impeached when I add that she is by her dull neighbors supposed
to be occasionally insane, but by herself to be at those times endowed
with a faculty of seeing visions and spectral appearances which shun the
common ken.
'In the year before the great rebellion, two young men from Newcastle
were sporting on the high moors above Eldson, and after pursuing their
game several hours, sat down to dine in a green glen near one of the
mountain streams. After their repast, the younger lad ran to the brook
for water, and after stooping to drink, was surprised, on lifting his
head again, by the appearance of a brown dwarf, who stood on a crag
covered with brackens, across the burn. This extraordinary personage
did not appear to be above half the stature of a common man, but
was uncommonly stout and broad-built, having the appearance of vast
strength. His dress was entirely brown, the color of the brackens, and
his head covered with frizzled red hair. His countenance was expressive
of the most savage ferocity, and his eyes glared like a bull. It seems
he addressed the young man first, threatening him with his vengeance for
having trespassed on his demesnes, and asking him if he knew in whose
presence he stood? The youth replied that he now supposed him to be the
lord of the moors; that he offended through ignorance; and offered to
bring him the game he had killed. The dwarf was a little mollified by
this submission, but remarked that nothing could be more offensive
to him than such an offer, as he considered the wild animals as his
subjects, and never failed to avenge their destruction. He condescended
further to inform him that he was, like himself, mortal, though of years
far exceeding the lot of common humanity, and (what I should not have
had an idea of) that he hoped for salvation. He never, he added, fed on
anything that had life, but lived in the summer on whortleberries, and
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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