Walk a Northumberland moor at night and the locals will tell you to watch for a light. Not a torch. Not a campfire. A small lantern held low, drifting through the bracken, beckoning you forward. The creature carrying it is the duergar - Old Norse for dwarf - and his sole interest is steering you over a cliff or into a bog. The hills where he supposedly walks are called Simonside, and whether or not you believe in the dwarf, the name carries a stranger story still: a name that may go back to Beowulf.
A document from 1279 calls the hills Simundessete. By 1580 the form had softened to Simontside. Most etymologists trace this to Sigemund's seat or Sigemund's settlement. Sigemund is the Germanic hero who appears in the Volsunga Saga, the Nibelungenlied, and, most famously, the Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf, where he is celebrated for killing a dragon. WW Tomlinson's 1916 guide to Northumberland quaintly recorded that Simon, in local mythology, was a brewer for King Arthur with a fondness for dispatching dragons. The hills, in other words, may be named for a fragment of pre-Christian European myth that survived in a corner of upland England long after the language that contained it had vanished.
Tosson Hill, at 440 metres, is the highest point of the range. Most of the surrounding tops sit around 300 metres, low by mountain standards but high enough to feel exposed in the Northumberland wind. The Simonsides are designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest for the rare combination of habitats packed into a small area: moorland managed for red grouse, blanket bog where cloudberry and round-leaved sundew grow, and woodland of alder, downy birch, rowan, sessile oak and juniper along the valley slopes. In older stands of heather the moss Sphagnum capillifolium grows alongside Plagiothecium undulatum. Part of the SSSI is owned by the Ministry of Defence.
The dwarf's lantern has lit its way into the modern life of Rothbury, the town below. There is a children's book about the duergar, published in 2021 by local poet James Tait. There is a Red Deaugar Art Gallery on the main street. And there is an annual ten-mile winter night-time trail run called the Duergar Nightcrawler, in which participants chase, or are chased by, the same light that has unsettled travellers for centuries. The ITV crime drama Vera filmed an episode called Darkwater here, drawn no doubt by the same atmosphere of mist and moor and something not quite right just beyond the edge of vision.
Rock climbers know the Simonsides for their gritstone crags. Several single-pitch lines run along the hillside, with Simonside North Face and Ravensheugh among the most popular. The hills also hold a small place in the history of British mapmaking. Until 1919, one of the Simonside summits served as the meridian for the six-inch and 1:2500 Ordnance Survey maps of Northumberland. After that, the cartographic centre of the county shifted south to Brandon Down in Durham. The dwarf, presumably, took no notice.
Located at 55.28°N, 1.96°W in the Northumberland National Park, just south-west of Rothbury and the River Coquet. Tosson Hill is the highest point at 440 m. Nearest commercial airport is Newcastle (EGNT) about 28 nm south. The heather ridge runs roughly east-west and is most distinctive in late summer when the moorland flowers. Excellent low-level VFR scenery from 3,000-4,500 ft over Coquetdale; turbulence common in northwest winds.