The Simonside Hills are a hill range in

Northumberland Northumberland () is a ceremonial counties of England, county in Northern England, one of two counties in England which border with Scotland. Notable landmarks in the county include Alnwick Castle, Bamburgh Castle, Hadrian's Wall and Hexham Ab ...

, England near the town of

Rothbury Rothbury is a market town and civil parish in Northumberland, England, on the River Coquet. It is northwest of Morpeth and of Newcastle upon Tyne. At the 2001 Census, it had a population of 2,107. Rothbury emerged as an important town bec ...

. Most of the hills are around high and are popular spots for

hiker Hiking is a long, vigorous walk, usually on trails or footpaths in the countryside. Walking for pleasure developed in Europe during the eighteenth century.AMATO, JOSEPH A. "Mind over Foot: Romantic Walking and Rambling." In ''On Foot: A Hist ...

s in the area. The highest point is Tosson Hill at . There are several single pitch rock climbing crags dotted along the hillside, notably Simonside North Face and Ravensheugh.

Etymology

In a document dated to 1279 Simonside was called Simundessete. By 1580 the name had become Simontside. The name may be a corruption of ''Sigemund's seat'' or ''Sigemund's settlement''. Sigemund or

Sigmund In Norse mythology, Sigmund ( non, Sigmundr , ang, Sigemund) is a hero whose story is told in the Völsunga saga. He and his sister, Signý, are the children of Völsung and his wife Hljod. Sigmund is best known as the father of Sigurð the ...

is the name of an old Germanic hero from the Volsunga Saga and the

Nibelungenlied The ( gmh, Der Nibelunge liet or ), translated as ''The Song of the Nibelungs'', is an epic poem written around 1200 in Middle High German. Its anonymous poet was likely from the region of Passau. The is based on an oral tradition of German ...

who is mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon poem ''

Beowulf ''Beowulf'' (; ang, Bēowulf ) is an Old English Epic poetry, epic poem in the tradition of Germanic heroic legend consisting of 3,182 Alliterative verse, alliterative lines. It is one of the most important and List of translations of Beo ...

''. WW Tomlinson, in his ''Comprehensive Guide To Northumberland'' (1916), stated that "Simon of mythology was, it seems, a domestic brewer to King Arthur, identical with the German Sigmund, and very fond of killing dragons"

This points to the possibility that the Simon of Simonside Hill is the Sigemund mentioned in ''Beowulf'' and subsequently Norse and Teutonic myths. It is worth noting that in Scandinavia and Germany, Sigmund is not generally associated with dragon-slaying, his son

Sigurd Sigurd ( non, Sigurðr ) or Siegfried (Middle High German: ''Sîvrit'') is a legendary hero of Germanic heroic legend, who killed a dragon and was later murdered. It is possible he was inspired by one or more figures from the Frankish Merovi ...

or Siegfried is. His killing of a dragon was mentioned in ''Beowulf'', however. An alternative derivation for the name is a corruption of "seaman's sight", allegedly because the hills are visible from the North Sea

This is almost certainly

false etymology A false etymology (fake etymology, popular etymology, etymythology, pseudo-etymology, or par(a)etymology) is a popular but false belief about the origin or derivation of a specific word. It is sometimes called a folk etymology, but this is also a ...

, however, as the word ''(ge)sete'' means ''seat'' or ''settlement'' and not ''sight''. The Old English word for ''sight'' is ''gesiht'

and the old English for seaman is ''sæmanna

and thus ''Seaman's Sight'' (or "Sæmannas(ge)siht") is unlikely to have become ''Simundessete'' in Middle English.

Folklore

In Rothbury folklore Simonside Hills overlooking Rothbury has a mythical creature called a ''deaugar'' ( Old Norse, Norse for ''' dwarf). It is said that the creature lures people at night by its lantern light towards bogs or cliffs in order to kill them. The village below the hills Rothbury has an art gallery called Red Deaugar Art Gallery named after the creature. There is also an annual 10 mile winter nighttime trail run in the Simonside Hills celebrating this folklore calle
The Duergar Nightcrawler

Geodesy

Up to 1919 one of the hills of Simonside was the origin (meridian) of the 6 inch and 1:2500 Ordnance Survey maps of Northumberland. After that the maps of Northumberland were drawn according to the meridian of Brandon Down in Durham.

In popular culture

''Vera'', an ITV

crime drama Crime films, in the broadest sense, is a film genre inspired by and analogous to the crime fiction literary genre. Films of this genre generally involve various aspects of crime and its detection. Stylistically, the genre may overlap and combine ...

, had an episode that was filmed at Simonside Hills, this being ''Darkwater ( Season 8 Episode 4)''.

References

*Grice, F, ''Folk Tales of the North Country'' (Thomas Nelson & Sons Ltd, London & Edinburgh, 1944) pp130–133

External links