The Black Middens and the Myth of Cor

I recently came across this wonderful tale about the Tyne god, Cor, in a detailed post by Celtic historian, William Young, exploring the origins of the name Corbridge. It’s well worth a read here: https://inter-celtic.com/the-devil-of-the-north-the-giant-cor-the-celtic-mythology-of-the-tyne-valley/

The origin story is that Cor was a blind giant who ruled the Tyne Valley and fought with his brothers Ben and Con over possession of an enormous hammer. Ben and Con gave their names to Benfieldside and Consett in Durham, while Cor presided to the north of the river and founded Coria, the Roman ruins of which preceded Corbridge. Young argues that this story likely derives from the original Celtic mythology of the Tyne Valley.

Tyne river god — This mask hangs in the Central Library and celebrates Cor as a coal-carrying river god, serving to make Newcastle rich.

The Myth of Cor at Tynemouth

“At the foot of the rocks on which the Life Brigade House and the Monument stands, are the dangerous reef of rocks known as the Black Middens. Concerning the origin of the Black Middens, there is an old legend which is interesting from the fact it is the first historical struggle for supremacy between the old presiding deity of the River Tyne and its present acknowledged patron. 

The Giant Cor, who claimed the Tyne as his own special property, and who dwelt on its banks where his name is now associated with the village— once took it into his head to shut the tide out of the river. In order to do this effectually, he brought lapfuls of stones from Newbiggin, Hartley, and Whitley points and threw them into the entrance to the Tyne, just within the Bar. 

But King Neptune, riding upon the tide twice a day to wanton with his Dolphins upon the fresh water, swept these stones out of the main channel, leaving the entrance clear, but left them in a heap near the shore on the north side; when from the earliest records we have of the Roman and Danish invasions until the present century, they have been the scenes of wrecks, and hundreds of valuable lives lost upon them… 

The erection of the two magnificent piers at the mouth  of the river have, however, entirely removed the danger of these dreaded Black Middens; the spell of the Old Giant Cor has been broken, and the safety of the Tyne as a harbour of refuge is now universally acknowledged.”


'Illustrated Handbook to the Rivers Tyne, Blyth & Wansbeck' by John Robinson (1894)

Listen to the audio for the post here:

Penbal 1 – Lee Stoneman

No air-built castles, and no fairy bowers,
But thou, fair Tynemouth, and thy well-known towers,
Now bid th’ historic muse explore the maze
Of long past years, and tales of other days.
Pride of Northumbria!—from thy crowded port,
Where Europe’s brave commercial sons resort,
Her boasted mines send forth their sable stores,
To buy the varied wealth of distant shores.
Here the tall lighthouse, bold in spiral height,
Glads with its welcome beam the seaman’s sight.
Here, too, the firm redoubt, the rampart’s length,
The death-fraught cannon, and the bastion’s strength,
Hang frowning o’er the briny deep below,
To guard the coast against th’ invading foe.
Here health salubrious spreads her balmy wings,
And woos the sufferer to her saline springs;
And, here the antiquarian strays around
The ruin’d abbey, and its sacred ground.