Words, words, words! They shut one off from the universe. Three quarters of the time one’s never in contact with things, only with the beastly words that stand for them.
...Aldous Huxley
A Glossary of the English Countryside
The English landscape exists in the minds of readers from all over the world, whether they’ve been there or not, because it has been described by the giants of English literature, from Shakespere to Somerset Maugham. Uphill and down, even after global warming, England looks like they said it does.
It’s the names that look strange and unfamiliar, at least to a California visitor. You won’t find mesas or canyons in England, but you will find fells and dales. Here is a partial list of other things you will find:
- beck:
- a stream; from the Old Norse bekkr
- combe:
- a deep narrow valley; a valley on the flank of a hill; from the Old English cumb
- coppice
- a small stand of trees; a thicket
- crag
- a rough steep rock; derivation uncertain
- dale
- a valley; from the Old Norse dalr
- fell
- a mountain, or hill, or upland tract; from the Old Norse fjall
- heath
- an extensive tract of open, uncultivated land
- moor
- a broad tract of open land, often high but poorly drained
- tarn
- a small mountain lake; from the Old Norse tjorn
- tor
- a high rock or pile of rocks on top of a hill
- wick
- (wich) a village, a castle, a dwelling or place of work: baliwick, Warwick, Buscot Wick
- wold
- a rolling hill
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