Sprites Of Northumberland - Newcastle Courant 1880.

An account of mischievous sprites and ghosts, this appeared in the Newcastle Courant on Friday 2nd April 1880 under the heading of "Sprites Of Northumberland And Durham."

The belief in ghosts or sprites, some tricksy and mischievous as Puck; others of a fatally malevolent character, according to Henderson and other writers, was once general in the north of England. The Dunnie, one of these popular bogles, is of the brownie type, and is located at Hazelrigg, in the parish of Chatton, Northumberland.

When an interesting event at a farmer's house renders a midwife necessary, the master on going to the stable to saddle his horse to fetch her finds that the Dunnie has assumed its form. The supposititious steed carries the farmer to his destination and brings him back with the midwife riding behind, but suddenly disappears and leaves the luckless couple floundering in the mud.

Countryside towards Hazelrigg.

Sometimes the Dunnie assumes the form of a horse in the field, and when the ploughman has caught him and harnessed him, he suddenly gallops off out of sight, leaving the harness on the ground. The Dunnie formerly wandered among the crags of the Cheviots, sadly chanting the following verse:-

"Cocken heugh there's gear enough

  Collier heugh there's mair

  For I've lost the Bounders

  An' I'm ruined for evermair."

Tradition says that Dunnie is the ghost of a border reiver, whose stolen wealth -- hidden among the crags -- binds his soul to earth.

A century ago Silky haunted the village of Black Heddon, near Stamfordham, in Northumberland. This ghost is known in other places as a "white lady." Her delight was to startle a lonely horseman, seating herself behind him "rustling in her silk" after appearing in great splendour, with a shining garb of a silky appearance. After riding a certain distance she would vanish as suddenly as she had appeared.

Black Heddon.

Silky's Chair was the name of her favourite resort, two or three miles from Black Heddon, on a crag crowned with trees, under whose shade she would wander all night. Near the outlet of a small lake a tree grew which threw its branches across the stream, forming a sort of seat, called Silky's Chair, in which the lady would sit.

Her power was not always so harmlessly exercised. Sometimes she would prevent horses working at her will; and on one occasion she thus stopped a team upon a bridge since called "Silky's Brig." The driver could not get his horses to move till another farm servant arrived with some witchwood (mountain ash) about him. At night Silky would tidy a disorderly house, but after the inmates of another house had set all to rights on a Saturday afternoon, for Sunday she would enter and throw all into confusion.

The story of Silky's disappearance is characteristic of many ghost narratives. One day a great crack astonished the inmate of a house at Black Heddon, and a girl ran out of the room screaming "The devil's in the house; he has come through the ceiling." On the floor was found a large, rough skin filled with gold; and it is said that this was a treasure hid by Silky during her lifetime, which drew her anxious spirit back to earth (shades of Meg 'o-Meldon there!). No particulars, however, have been handed down of this singular "treasure trove."

Some time afterwards, an old woman named Pearson of Welton Mill told the Rev. J. F. Bigge, on her deathbed, that she had seen Silky, the night before, sitting at the bottom of her bed all dressed in silk. A lady very like Silky, clad in rustling silk, for a long time haunted Denton Hall, near Newcastle; and another formerly "walked in silk attire," for some reason or other, along a shady avenue near North Shields, who was supposed to be the ghost of a lady once a mistress of the Duke of Argyle, in the reign of William III, and who died under suspicious circumstances at Chirton, one of his residences.

The Hedley Kow, a tricksy sprite, haunted Hedley near Ebchester, performing pranks very similar to those of the Dunnie, but ending with a horselaugh at the expense of his victims. At one time he was a truss of straw, which would vanish with a loud laugh. Inside the farmhouse it would overturn kailpots, give cream to the cats, unravel the knitting, derange the spinning wheel, and lastly, repeat Dunnie's trick when the midwife was wanted.

Of course authentic narratives are extant of persons tricked by the Hedley Kow, who like the "Cauld Lad of Hilton," in the valley of the Wear, is one of capricious disposition, delighted in putting an untidy house in order, and recklessly scattering the objects in a room that has been carefully arranged.

He is supposed to be the ghost of a boy murdered, and thrown into a pond by an old Baron of Hilton; and it is said that a skeleton was found in some pond near Hylton Castle. The latest and strangest sprite in Northumberland is the "Ghost  of Willington Mill;" but this sprite hardly belongs to legendary lore.