Climbing in The British Isles. Vol. 1 - EnglandHaskett Smith, W. P. (Walter Parry)
History
Climbing in The British Isles. Vol. 1 - England
Haskett Smith, W. P. (Walter Parry)
Mountaineering -- England; Mountains -- England -- Guidebooks
Mosedale and the passes of Black Sail and Scarf Gap' (Whellan's 'History
of Cumberland,' 1860). Can it be wondered at that, in the face of such
terrors as this, very few people find their way into Ennerdale, except
those who with fear and trembling cross the head of it on their way
between Buttermere and Wastdale Head? Every guide-book, indeed, mentions
Ennerdale and the Pillar by name, because it gives an opportunity for
quoting the well-worn lines from 'The Brothers,' after which a few
meagre remarks may be expected to follow on the 'Pillar Mountain,' the
'Pillar Rock,' and 'Ennerdale Lake,' expressions of which not one,
strictly speaking, is correct, for the proper name of the first is
beyond all doubt 'Pillar _Fell_,' 'mountain' being an innovation of
tourists and guide-book writers, who between them have made 'Pillar
_Rock_' sound more familiar than the genuine name 'Pillar _Stone_,' and
have almost ousted 'Broadwater' in favour of 'Ennerdale Lake.'
Printed authorities are scanty, because Ennerdale is of very recent
discovery. The early guide-books simply know nothing about it. West
(1778) does not mention it, and the gifted authoress of that touching
poem 'Edwina' did not even know how to spell its name:
But chiefly, Ennersdale, to thee I turn,
And o'er thy healthful vales heartrended mourn,
Vain do thy riv'lets spread their curving sides
While o'er thy glens the summer zephyr glides.
And yet Mrs. Cowley was by no means indifferent to such points. Indeed,
we owe the origin of this exquisite poem to her etymological zeal and to
her desire to immortalise the brilliant suggestion that the name
'Wotobank' was derived from some one having once said, 'Woe to this
bank!' It may even be that the spelling is a symbolical subtlety--a kind
of refinement on 'word-painting' intended to shadow forth to less poetic
minds, by the sinuosity of the superfluous 's,' the unique manner in
which the rivulets of this happy valley are wont to 'spread their
curving sides.' One of the earliest visitors to Ennerdale appears to
have been the artist Smith, of Derby (1767), who sketched the lake, as
did also Wilkinson in 1810. Wordsworth had been there before 1800, and
Green's description shows that he was much struck by the scenery of
upper Ennerdale. But, though visitors to Ennerdale have been and still
are few, most of these few speak highly of its beauties, 'partly
perhaps,' says Mr. Payn, 'in consequence of their having endured certain
inconveniences (with which they are anxious that you should also become
acquainted) when belated in that lovely spot.' The dale is not without
its associations. Formerly it was a deer forest, the property of the
Crown by forfeiture from the father of the ill-fated Lady Jane Grey. The
Sandford manuscript speaks enthusiastically of 'the montaines and
fforest of Innerdale, wher ther is reed dear and as great Hartts and
Staggs as in any part of England. The bow-bearer is a brave gentleman.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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