Brown Man of the Muirs

Sources do not record a unified origin myth. Two strands are attested in the supplied material: (1) a solitary guardian tradition, preserved in a Surtees anecdote reported by William Henderson, in which a single 'wee brown man' inhabits the high moors above Elsdon and enforces rules about trespass and slaughter of animals; and (2) a later fairy-tale tradition in which the Brown Men form a tribe once widespread across England and Scotland but reduced in number by human encroachment (in some tale summaries they are said to have retreated to a cave in Cumberland). The sources note the relationship of the Brown Man to other small subterranean/moorland folk (for example duergar) but do not supply a cosmogonic origin.

In the Surtees account (as reported by William Henderson) the Brown Man is a 'dwarf very strong and stoutly built' wearing brown dress 'like withered bracken,' with frizzled red hair and a 'ferocious' countenance and 'eyes glowing like those of a bull.' Fairy-tale literature generally treats the Brown Men as small, robust folk but supplies no consistent physical detail beyond their small stature and strength (ability in some tales to hurl small boulders).

From the Surtees/Henderson field account: territorial guardianship of upland animals, the capacity to reproach or threaten hunters, a declared diet of whortleberries, nuts, and apples, and an implied capacity to cause misfortune to those who slight admonition (the anecdote reports a hunter dying within a year after ignoring the Brown Man's warning). From later fairy-tale literature: motifs include great physical strength (stone‑hurling), mining/industry in subterranean halls by day and feasting or dancing by night (tale motif), kidnapping of human children, killing any man they catch alone in the wilderness, and a tale-specific compulsion formula (the incantation 'Munko tiggle snobart tolwol dixy crambo') that reportedly can make them subservient. The tale motifs are attested in literary summaries and are not present in the single field anecdote.