See Brag.

[Motifs: E423; E423.1.3.5(b); F234.0.2; F399.4]

Good accounts of the Northumbrian Dunnie can be found both in the Denham Tracts (Vol.II, pp.157-159), and in Henderson's Folk-Lore of the Northern Counties (p.263). According to Denham, the Dunnie is an individual spirit, from Hazelrigg on Belford Moor. It is surmised that he was originally the ghost of a Border reiver, who was caught and killed robbing a granary. He had a considerable amount of plunder hidden in one of the caves in a crag called Bowden Doors, and he died without disclosing it, which is one of the prime reasons for haunting. The rhyme which he was in the habit of reciting, and which is given by Henderson, certainly bears out this assumption:

Cocken heugh there's gear enough,

    Collier heugh there's mair,

For I've lost the key o' the Bounders,

    An' I'm ruined for evermair.