The Duergar
The most infamous of all Simonside’s ‘little people’ are probably the Duergar. According to the Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (Cobham Brewer 1993), these are “Dwarfs who dwell in rocks and hills; noted for their strength, subtlety, magical powers, and skill in metallurgy. They are the personification of the subterranean powers of nature’
Grice’s (1944) Folk-tales of the North Country contains a Duergar tale that is certainly worth re-telling!
‘Not very far from the town of Rothbury in Northumberland lies a range of dangerous hills called the Simonside Hills. The shepherds who live on these hills do not care to be away from home after night has fallen, or when the fog is thick, for there are many ravines and steep places where one false step in the dark or in the mist may mean death. Much less do strangers, who do not know these hills as well as the shepherds, care to be lost in them? Indeed, few strangers ever attempt to cross the moors in the dark. But once a young man, who was trying to reach the town of Rothbury, found himself benighted there. He had meant to reach the town before sunset, but he had lost his way, and now found himself many miles from his destination, without a single light to guide him. He tried to keep to his path in the dark, but soon lost it. A shepherd, by recognising this hill and that stream, might have picked his way home; but it was the first time that this traveller had been among these hills, so very wisely he decided to look for some little cave or sheltered place where he could spend the night. He was just about to settle down with his back against a big overhanging rock that he thought would screen him from the wind, when he saw not very far away, a glimmering light. “Perhaps it is some shepherd’s house,” he thought, “and I can shelter there.” So he began to pick his way very carefully through the bracken and over the stones towards the light.
When he reached it, he found that the light came from a little hut built of wood and roofed with thick sods. It was just such a hut as the shepherds sometimes use during the lambing time, and the light came from a little fire that was burning on the floor between two rough grey stones. On the right-hand side were two great logs as thick as gate-posts. How relieved the traveller was when he saw this snug little place, for he knew that the greatest enemy of the benighted wanderer was the cold night air. He piled some of the smaller sticks on the fire, pulled his coat round him, and sat down on one of the grey stones.
He had scarce sat down when into the hut walked a most surprising little figure. It was a dwarf, who stood no higher than the traveller’s knee. His coat was made out of a lamb’s skin, his trousers and shoes of moleskins, and his hat of green moss, decorated with a tall feather from a cock-pheasant. He came in without a greeting, and sat down on the other grey stone, and scowled at the traveller as if to ask what he was doing there. The young man was surprised and too startled to ask who the fairy was, and by-and-by, when he recovered himself, he was glad he had not spoken, for the little man kept on scowling at him as if seeking for some reason to pick a quarrel. “This is a duergar,” said the traveller to himself. “I must do nothing to offend him, for I know that these dwarfs mean harm to mortals, and fly into a rage very quickly.” So he kept still and stared back at the dwarf.
Presently the fire began to die down, and the traveller could feel the cold air creeping into the room. It began to nip his fingers and his toes. Nevertheless, he did not stir, until the cold began to creep up his arms and legs and make him shiver. The dwarf did not seem to feel the cold at all, but at last the man felt that he could stand it no longer. Reaching forward he took a handful of the small sticks that lay on the right-hand side of the fire, and threw them on the dying embers. No sooner had he done that than the duergar gave him a worse scowl than ever. Leaning over to the gate-post - and through it was twice his size and twice as thick as his own body, he smashed it across his knee as if it were matchwood. Then he threw the pieces on the fire, as if to say, “Any child can break pieces of kindling sticks. Take the other post, and see if you can break that.” But the traveller, seeing that this was a kind of trap for him, never stirred, but kept on staring at the dwarf as motionless as a statue.
By-and-by the fire died down again, but the man kept on staring at the dwarf and never moving a finger, and the dwarf scowled back at him. The room grew darker and darker and colder and colder, till suddenly, away down in a valley, a cock crew. And as soon as the cock had crowed, the dwarf disappeared, and with him the hut and the fire. The traveller looked up. The sky in the east was turning grey, and by its dim light he saw that he was still sitting on the big grey stone. But it was the topmost stone of a dark, rugged precipice. Had he leaned over to the left to reach the other gate-post, as the dwarf had challenged him to do, he would have fallen down the cliff and killed himself.