Long before recorded history, three fearsome brothers—Con, Ben, and Mug—towered over the landscape of County Durham. In his ballad The Durham Giants, Laurence Goodchild (1813–1881), the blind bard of Newcastle, immortalised these titans in verse. A classical scholar with a memory as vast as his learning, Goodchild was a familiar sight in the city—his towering frame and walking stick as well-known as the Grey Monument.
His poem, rich in myth and menace, offers a darker, more visceral vision than the genteel ode of Dr John Carr. Goodchild’s giants were no gentle giants. They were named Con, Ben and Mug – not Cor. Their eyes blazed like burning coals, and their bodies bristled with hair from crown to heel. No warrior, no matter how well-armoured, could withstand their fury. They feasted on Christian flesh, drank Christian blood, and considered the tender limbs of Christian children a rare delicacy. With tusks like wild boars, they tore through their prey, and their shaggy manes—reminiscent of Norway bears—flowed down their backs. They wielded uprooted pine trees with thunderous force, laying waste in countless battles.
The brothers Con Ben and Mug (not Cor) shared a single hammer, passing it between them as they built their strongholds. So vast was Mug that, according to Goodchild, “a greyhound bitch her sucking whelps did hide” in his boot.
Their reign of terror ended in blood and betrayal. Con was felled by a broad arrow at Annfield Plain. Ben met his end on the hill of Medomsley, slain by none other than Sir Launcelot of Arthurian fame. Mug’s demise was more ignoble: betrayed by a beauteous nun he sought to woo. Like Sisera in the Book of Judges, Mug fell asleep in the arms of a cloistered viper—robed in silk—who drove an iron spike through his temple, ending his life as he slept.
Goodchild claimed that Mug gave his name to Muggleswick Moor, where the towering walls of his castle once stood. The hamlet of Muggleswick, near Consett, includes the ruins of a countryside retreat built for the priors of Durham between 1258 and 1272. Goodchild’s poem echoes a local legend recorded by William Hutchinson in 1785, about Edward Ward—a real-life giant buried in Muggleswick churchyard. Tradition holds that Ward was so large a favourite hound littered in his wooden shoe.
“The Durham Giants” is a vivid blend of folklore, biblical allusion, and classical drama. It stands as a testament to the enduring power of myth in shaping local identity—and to the shadow cast by giants long gone.
