Fell
Encyclopedia
Mountain
Image:Himalaya_annotated.jpg|thumb|right|The Himalayan mountain range with Mount Everestrect 58 14 160 49 Chomo Lonzorect 200 28 335 52 Makalurect 378 24 566 45 Mount Everestrect 188 581 920 656 Tibetan Plateaurect 250 406 340 427 Rong River...
s, or certain types of mountainous landscape, in Scandinavia
Scandinavia
Scandinavia is a cultural, historical and ethno-linguistic region in northern Europe that includes the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, characterized by their common ethno-cultural heritage and language. Modern Norway and Sweden proper are situated on the Scandinavian Peninsula,...
, the Isle of Man
Isle of Man
The Isle of Man , otherwise known simply as Mann , is a self-governing British Crown Dependency, located in the Irish Sea between the islands of Great Britain and Ireland, within the British Isles. The head of state is Queen Elizabeth II, who holds the title of Lord of Mann. The Lord of Mann is...
, and parts of northern England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
.
Etymology
The English word fell comes from Old NorseOld Norse
Old Norse is a North Germanic language that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and inhabitants of their overseas settlements during the Viking Age, until about 1300....
fell, fjall (both forms existed). It is cognate with Icelandic
Icelandic language
Icelandic is a North Germanic language, the main language of Iceland. Its closest relative is Faroese.Icelandic is an Indo-European language belonging to the North Germanic or Nordic branch of the Germanic languages. Historically, it was the westernmost of the Indo-European languages prior to the...
fjall/fell, Faroese
Faroese language
Faroese , is an Insular Nordic language spoken by 48,000 people in the Faroe Islands and about 25,000 Faroese people in Denmark and elsewhere...
fjall, Danish
Danish language
Danish is a North Germanic language spoken by around six million people, principally in the country of Denmark. It is also spoken by 50,000 Germans of Danish ethnicity in the northern parts of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, where it holds the status of minority language...
fjeld, Swedish
Swedish language
Swedish is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along its coast and on the Åland islands. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish...
fjäll, and Norwegian
Norwegian language
Norwegian is a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Norway, where it is the official language. Together with Swedish and Danish, Norwegian forms a continuum of more or less mutually intelligible local and regional variants .These Scandinavian languages together with the Faroese language...
fjell, all referring to mountains rising above the alpine tree line.
England
Northern England
Northern England, also known as the North of England, the North or the North Country, is a cultural region of England. It is not an official government region, but rather an informal amalgamation of counties. The southern extent of the region is roughly the River Trent, while the North is bordered...
, especially in the Lake District
Lake District
The Lake District, also commonly known as The Lakes or Lakeland, is a mountainous region in North West England. A popular holiday destination, it is famous not only for its lakes and its mountains but also for its associations with the early 19th century poetry and writings of William Wordsworth...
and in the Pennine Dale
Dale (origin)
A dale is an open valley. The name is used when describing the physical geography of an area. It is used most frequently in the Lowlands of Scotland and in the North of England, where the term "fell" commonly refers to the mountains or hills that flank the dale.The word dale comes from the Old...
s, the word fell originally referred to an area of uncultivated high ground used as common grazing
Grazing
Grazing generally describes a type of feeding, in which a herbivore feeds on plants , and also on other multicellular autotrophs...
. This meaning is found in the names of various breeds of livestock
Livestock
Livestock refers to one or more domesticated animals raised in an agricultural setting to produce commodities such as food, fiber and labor. The term "livestock" as used in this article does not include poultry or farmed fish; however the inclusion of these, especially poultry, within the meaning...
, bred for life on the uplands, such as Rough Fell
Rough Fell (sheep)
The Rough Fell is an upland breed of sheep, originating in the UK. It is common on fell and moorland farms, its distribution embracing a large proportion of South Cumbria, parts of the West Riding of Yorkshire, North Lancashire and, more recently, upland parts of Devon...
sheep and fell ponies
Fell pony
The Fell Pony is a versatile, working breed of mountain and moorland pony originating in the north of England in Cumberland and Westmorland and Northumberland. It was originally bred on the fell farms of northwest England, and is used as a riding and driving pony...
. It is also found in many place names across the North of England, often attached to the name of a community; thus Seathwaite Fell
Seathwaite Fell
Seathwaite Fell is an area of the Lake District in Cumbria, England. It stands above the hamlet of the same name at the head of Borrowdale.-Position of the summit:...
, for example, would be the common grazing land used by the farmers of Seathwaite. The fellgate marks the exit from a settlement onto the fell (see photograph for example).
"Fell" can refer to any one of the mountain
Mountain
Image:Himalaya_annotated.jpg|thumb|right|The Himalayan mountain range with Mount Everestrect 58 14 160 49 Chomo Lonzorect 200 28 335 52 Makalurect 378 24 566 45 Mount Everestrect 188 581 920 656 Tibetan Plateaurect 250 406 340 427 Rong River...
s and hill
Hill
A hill is a landform that extends above the surrounding terrain. Hills often have a distinct summit, although in areas with scarp/dip topography a hill may refer to a particular section of flat terrain without a massive summit A hill is a landform that extends above the surrounding terrain. Hills...
s of the Lake District and the Pennine Dales. This meaning tends to overlap with the previous one, especially where place names are concerned: in particular, names that originally referred to grazing areas tend to be applied to hilltops, as is the case with the aforementioned Seathwaite Fell. In other cases the reverse is true; for instance, the name of Wetherlam
Wetherlam
Wetherlam is a mountain in the English Lake District. It is the most northerly of the Coniston Fells, the range of fells to the north-west of Coniston village; its north-east slopes descend to Little Langdale.-Topography:...
, in the Coniston Fells, though understood to refer to the mountain as a whole, strictly speaking refers to the summit; the slopes have names such as Tilberthwaite High Fell, Low Fell and Above Beck Fells.
In northern England, there is a Lord of the Fells
Lord of the Fells
Lord of the Fells is a subsidiary title of the Lords of Bowland. The title is thought to have become customary during the high medieval period as a description of the Lords' rugged upland demesne. Bowland Fells, more widely known as the Forest of Bowland, is an area of barren gritstone fells,...
- this ancient aristocratic title being associated with the Lords of Bowland in north-eastern Lancashire.
Groups of cairn
Cairn
Cairn is a term used mainly in the English-speaking world for a man-made pile of stones. It comes from the or . Cairns are found all over the world in uplands, on moorland, on mountaintops, near waterways and on sea cliffs, and also in barren desert and tundra areas...
s are a common feature on many fells, often marking the summit — there are fine examples on Wild Boar Fell
Wild Boar Fell
Wild Boar Fell is a mountain in Mallerstang on the eastern edge of Cumbria, England. At , it is either the 4th highest fell in the Yorkshire Dales or the 5th, whether counting nearby High Seat or not...
in Mallerstang
Mallerstang
Mallerstang is a civil parish in the extreme east of Cumbria, and, geographically, a dale at the head of the upper Eden Valley. Originally part of Westmorland, it lies about south of the nearest town, Kirkby Stephen...
Dale, Cumbria, and on Nine Standards Rigg
Nine Standards Rigg
Nine Standards Rigg is the summit of Hartley Fell in the Pennine Hills of England. It lies near the boundary between Cumbria and North Yorkshire, a few miles south-east of Kirkby Stephen and approx 700 metres outside the Yorkshire Dales National Park. The name is derived from a group of standing...
just outside Kirkby Stephen
Kirkby Stephen
Kirkby Stephen is a civil parish and small market town in Cumbria, in North West England which historically, is part of Westmorland. The town is located on the A685, surrounded by sparsely populated hill country, and about from the two nearest larger towns, Kendal and Penrith...
, Cumbria
Cumbria
Cumbria , is a non-metropolitan county in North West England. The county and Cumbria County Council, its local authority, came into existence in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972. Cumbria's largest settlement and county town is Carlisle. It consists of six districts, and in...
.
As the most mountainous region of England, the Lake District is the area most closely associated with the sport of fell running
Fell running
Fell running, also known as mountain running and hill running, is the sport of running and racing, off road, over upland country where the gradient climbed is a significant component of the difficulty...
, which takes its name from the fells of the district. "Fellwalking" is also the term used locally for the activity known in the rest of Great Britain
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
as hillwalking
Hillwalking
In the British Isles, the terms hillwalking or fellwalking are commonly used to describe the recreational outdoor activity of walking on hills and mountains, often with the intention of visiting their summits...
.
Fennoscandia
In Norway and Sweden, fjell (Norwegian) or fjäll (Swedish) usually refers to any mountain or upland high enough that forest will not naturally survive at the top, in effect a mountain tundraTundra
In physical geography, tundra is a biome where the tree growth is hindered by low temperatures and short growing seasons. The term tundra comes through Russian тундра from the Kildin Sami word tūndâr "uplands," "treeless mountain tract." There are three types of tundra: Arctic tundra, alpine...
. It can in some instances refer to other mountains of the same shape as the far northern mountains even when they permit forest growth to the top, but this isn't very common. Without a tree line, it would generally be referred to as simply a mountain.
In Finland, the mountains characteristic of the region of Lapland are called tunturi (plural: tunturit), but this term is often translated with the Swedish term fjäll in English (tunturi is used to refer to treeless plains at high altitudes in far north regions, as well). They are round inselbergs
Monadnock
A monadnock or inselberg is an isolated rock hill, knob, ridge, or small mountain that rises abruptly from a gently sloping or virtually level surrounding plain...
rising from the otherwise flat surroundings. The mountains in Finnish Lapland reach heights of up to 400 and 800 metres, where the upper reaches are above the tree line. Those that do not reach the tree line, on the other hand, are mostly referred to as vaara. The mountains in Finnish Lapland form vestiges of the Karelides
Karelides
The Karelides is an ancient mountain chain located between Eastern Finland and Lapland. It forms the current hill zone of Eastern Finland and Lapland's arctic hills, splitting central Finland. The Karelides formed about 2000 million years ago, when thick sandstone sediments rocked and then folded...
mountains, formed two billion years ago. The term tunturi is a loan
Loanword
A loanword is a word borrowed from a donor language and incorporated into a recipient language. By contrast, a calque or loan translation is a related concept where the meaning or idiom is borrowed rather than the lexical item itself. The word loanword is itself a calque of the German Lehnwort,...
from Sami
Sami languages
Sami or Saami is a general name for a group of Uralic languages spoken by the Sami people in parts of northern Finland, Norway, Sweden and extreme northwestern Russia, in Northern Europe. Sami is frequently and erroneously believed to be a single language. Several names are used for the Sami...
, compare Kildin Sami tūndâr, which means "uplands, treeless mountain tract". From this expression, the word tundra
Tundra
In physical geography, tundra is a biome where the tree growth is hindered by low temperatures and short growing seasons. The term tundra comes through Russian тундра from the Kildin Sami word tūndâr "uplands," "treeless mountain tract." There are three types of tundra: Arctic tundra, alpine...
is borrowed, as well.
See also
- Fell farmingFell farmingFell farming is the farming of fells, i.e. areas of uncultivated high ground used as common grazing. It is a term commonly used in Northern England, especially in the Lake District and the Pennine Dales...
- Fell TerrierFell TerrierFell Terrier refers to a regional type of long legged working terrier, not a specific breed of dog.- Description and purpose :Fell terriers are types of small working terriers developed in the Fell country of northern England and used as hunting dogs. They may be crossbred or purebred...
- List of fells in the Lake District
- List of Wainwrights
- The Outlying Fells of LakelandThe Outlying Fells of LakelandThe Outlying Fells of Lakeland is a book written by Alfred Wainwright, dealing with hills in and around the Lake District of England. It differs from Wainwright's Pictorial Guides in that it describes a series of walks, some of them taking in several summits, rather than devoting a chapter to each...
- Middlesex FellsMiddlesex Fells ReservationMiddlesex Fells Reservation, often referred to simply as the Fells, is a Massachusetts state park located in Malden, Medford, Melrose, Stoneham, and Winchester...
, a rocky highland just north of Boston, Massachusetts - SnaefellSnaefellSnaefell is the highest mountain and the only summit higher than on the Isle of Man, at above sea level. The summit is crowned by a train station, cafe, and several communications masts.- Views :...
, Isle of ManIsle of ManThe Isle of Man , otherwise known simply as Mann , is a self-governing British Crown Dependency, located in the Irish Sea between the islands of Great Britain and Ireland, within the British Isles. The head of state is Queen Elizabeth II, who holds the title of Lord of Mann. The Lord of Mann is...