Harry Potter terms 'could have roots in Yorkshire'

Alexandra Medcalf from the University of York, edited a dictionary of Yorkshire language from between 1100 and 1800, and said some of JK Rowling's words had originals based in the north of England.

Mr Medcalf said: "JK Rowling's Harry Potter vocabulary is famously steeped in mythology and folklore and she is known to use dialect terms in her work. For example, Dumbledore is a West Country word for bumblebee. It seems plausible that old Yorkshire terms form part of the source of squibs, the Wiggentree and the Niffler."

Some of the words and phrases collected in the book include a smoot - a small hole at the base of a hedge which hares pass through - a day-gate, which is a 15th century word for sunset, and a winter hedge, which is an old term for a clothes horse.

In the Harry Potter books, Rowling uses the word squib to refer to magic-born people who cannot use magic.

According to Mr Medcalf, in the time of Guy Fawkes, who was born in York in 1570, a firework was known as a squib in the Yorkshire region. He said it could be that the Harry Potter usage is derived from the associated phrase "a damp squib", which meant firework which does not go off.

The dictionary also records the verb to nifle, which meant to steal objects of little value. It cites court records of an individual found guilty of nifling at Barnby Dunn, near Doncaster, in 1755.