NOTES TO "PAN ON KIRKSTONE."
The sudden trouble and annihilation of Pan have reference to a passage in Plutarch, in his Treatise on Oracles, in which he relates that at the time of the Crucifixion, a voice was heard by certain mariners, sweeping over the Egean Sea, and crying "Pan is dead"; and the Oracles ceased. This idea, so beautifully expressing the overthrow of Paganism, and the flight of the old gods, at the inauguration of Christianity, Milton has finely elaborated in his sublime "Hymn on the Morning of the Nativity."
Many of the mountains in the North of England derive their name from some peculiarity of form: as Helm-Crag in Grasmere, Saddle-Back near Keswick, Great Gable at the head of Wast-Water, The Pillar in Ennerdale, The Hay Stacks, The Haycocks, High Stile, Steeple, &c.
There are also very marked resemblances to animate objects, well known to those familiar with the Lake District, as the Lion and the Lamb on the summit of Helm-Crag; the Astrologer, or Old woman cowering, on the same spot when seen from another quarter; the rude similitude of a female colossal statue, which gives the name of Eve's Crag to a cliff in the vale of Derwentwater. An interesting and but little known Arthurian reminiscence is found in the old legend that the recumbent effigy of that great king may be traced from some parts of the neighbourhood of Penrith in the outlines of the mountain range of which the peaks of Saddleback form the most prominent points. From the little hill of Castle Head or Castlet, the royal face of George the Third with its double chin, short nose, and receding forehead, can be quite made out in the crowning knob of Causey Pike. From under Barf, near Bassenthwaite Water, is seen the form which gives name to the Apostle's Crag. At a particular spot, the solemn shrouded figure comes out with bowed head and reverent mien, as if actually detaching itself from the rock—a vision seen by the passer by only for a few yards, when the magic ceases, and the Apostle goes back to stone. The massy forms of the Langdale Pikes, as seen from the south east, with the sweeping curve of Pavey Ark behind, are strikingly suggestive of two gigantic lions or pards, crouching side by side, with their breasts half turned towards the spectator. And a remarkable figure of a shepherd's dog, but of no great size, may be seen stretched out on a jutting crag, about half way up the precipice which overhangs the road, as the summit of Kirkstone Pass is approached from Brother's Water. It is not strictly, as stated in the foregoing verses, on the part of Kirkstone Fell called Red Screes, but some distance below it on the Patterdale side.
Among the freaks of Nature occasionally to be found in these hilly regions, is the print of the heifer's foot in Borrowdale, shown by the guides; and on a stone near Buck-Crag in Eskdale, the impressions of the foot of a man, a boy, and a dog, without any marks of tooling or instrument; and the remarkable precipices of Doe-Crag and Earn-Crag, whose fronts are polished as marble, the one 160 yards in perpendicular height, the other 120 yards.
On the top of the Screes, above Wastwater, stood for ages a very large stone called Wilson's Horse; which about a century ago fell down into the lake, when a cleft was made one hundred yards long, four feet wide, and of incredible depth.