Report of Meetings for 1885. By Jas. Hardy. 55 



on the parish, from which I am enabled to present in detail "the 

 history of Simonburn Church. 



" The name of the parish until 150 years since, when etymology became 

 a lost art, was always written Seimund, or Symonde-burn ; whether the 

 name is derived from the famous Sigmund, son of Volsung, and father of 

 Seigfred of the Nibelungen Lied — he who alone could draw the gleaming- 

 sword from the trunk of the great tree Branstock, where it had been driven 

 deep by the hand of Odin himself — or from a less famous Seimund, certain 

 it is that the cultus of Seimund was widely spread among the Teutonic 

 conquerors of England ; for while we have here Simondburn and Simon- 

 side, far away in the south are Symondsburg and Simondhall, and I have 

 collected some thirty English names with the same prefixes. It is a 

 curious instance of the irony of history, one county history copying its pre- 

 decessor, to having converted the fierce red-handed Pagan Seimund into 

 the Apostle St Simon Stilites." " An antiquarian friend writes from 

 Durham : — ' I am more and more convinced that your parish church is the 

 most ancient sacred spot in Northumberland, at least of which any tradi- 

 tion exists.' Such being the case we naturally look for its holy well, aud 

 just across the Dene, hard by where we stand, is the well that for more 

 than twelve centuries has borne the hallowed name of St Mungo. Proba- 

 bly during his sojourn at Carlisle, on his journey to Wales, he penetrated 

 into the wild hilly country of North Tyne along the wall as far as Simon- 

 burn. We may picture him clad in his long garment of goat-skin, with 

 simple stole as sign of priesthood, with bishop's staff of maple wood and a 

 shepherd's crook, baptising his converts in the venerable well which has 

 ever since borne his name. One would remark that, adojjting the Druidic 

 notion of the sacredness of the fountain, wells were frequently consecrated 

 to him, or as in this case the well in which he baptised was dedicated to his 

 memory." 



" I pass by the notion of its dedication to St Simon Stilites ; for as Mi- 

 Gregory, in his able little treatise on Church Dedication names in North- 

 umberland, says,' In this case the church name is obviously suggested by 

 the name of the village, and at a later date than the first foundation of the 

 church, because the name of Simonburn is a corruption, not from anyone 

 called Simon, but from Sigmund, an Anglo-Saxon warrior.' He goes on to 

 say, ' This church is one of the most ancient foundations in the country, 

 having, according to tradition, being founded by the disciples of St Kenti- 

 gern.' Mr Banks Gould writes to the same effect that such dedication is 

 probably unknown in England. Of the aliquot sacellse dependent on 

 Simonburn, which Hodgson rightly believes to have been that of Haughton 

 Castle (now a ruin), Kirkfield, Bellingham, Falstone, and Burnskirk at the 

 Deadwater, we know that Kirkfield was dedicated to St Michael and Belling- 

 ham to St Cuthbert ; but I have been able to find no certain account of the 

 patron saint of Simonburn, even in documents where one would have ex- 

 pected to find it, such as one curious allusion in the MS. register of Bishop 

 Fox in the Diocesan Registry of Durham, under the date of February 19, 

 1-499, where the bishop gives authority to William ; Bishop of Dromore, to 



