Possession (2012)
“—R. H. ASH, Ask to Embla, XIII My dearest Ellen, Today I varied my regimen of dissection and magnification by a long stride from foss to foss, or force to force, around the Dale of Goathland or Godeland—do you not admire the way we here see language in the making, in the alternative names, both accepted, for these things. These names were given by the ancient Vikings—the Danes settled these parts and embraced Christianity, whilst the wilder Norwegian pagans tried to invade from Ireland and the ...North—to meet defeat at Brunanburh. They left few traces of their 250 years of farming and fighting here—only words and names, which vanish and decay as W. Wordsworth has observed.
Mark! how all things swerve From their known course, or vanish like a dream; Another language spreads from coast to coast; Only perchance some melancholy Stream And some indignant Hills old names preserve, When laws, and creeds, and people all are lost!
There are two constituent brooklets of the Mirk Esk, the Eller Beck and the Wheeldale Beck, which have their juncture at a place called Beck Holes—and along these Becks are many fine fosses—the Thomasine Foss, Water Ark and Walk Mill Fosses—and then the Nelly Ayre Foss and Malyan’s Spout—a particularly impressive hundred-foot fall into the sylvan ravine.MoreLess
Mark! how all things swerve From their known course, or vanish like a dream; Another language spreads from coast to coast; Only perchance some melancholy Stream And some indignant Hills old names preserve, When laws, and creeds, and people all are lost!
There are two constituent brooklets of the Mirk Esk, the Eller Beck and the Wheeldale Beck, which have their juncture at a place called Beck Holes—and along these Becks are many fine fosses—the Thomasine Foss, Water Ark and Walk Mill Fosses—and then the Nelly Ayre Foss and Malyan’s Spout—a particularly impressive hundred-foot fall into the sylvan ravine.MoreLess
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