Norse Period.
Who then settled the dales, cleared the forest, drained the swamps, and made the wilderness into fields and farms?
Let us walk to-day through the valleys to the north of the village, and ask by the way what the country can tell us of its history.
Leaving the church we come in a few minutes to Yewdale Beck. Why "beck?" Nobody here calls it "brook," as in the Saxon south, nor "burn," as in the Anglian north. In the twelfth century, as now, the name was "Ywedallbec," showing that it had been named neither in Anglian nor in Saxon, but by inhabitants who talked the language of the Vikings.
The house on the hill before us, above fields sloping to the flats, is the Thwaite house. Thveit in Iceland, which the Norsemen colonized, means a field sloping to a flat. On the wooded hill behind it are enclosures called the high and low Guards—"yard" would be the Saxon word; gardhr is the Norse, becoming in our dialect sometimes "garth" and sometimes "gard" or "guard."
At the Waterhead the signpost tells us to follow the road to Hawkshead, anciently Hawkens-heved or Hawkenside—Hauk's or Hákon's headland or seat.
Taking the second turn to the left we go up the ravine of Tarn Hows Gill (Tjarn-haugs-gil), and reach a favourite spot for mountain views. Above and around the moorland lake rise the Langdale Pikes (Langidalr there is also in Iceland), Lingmoor (lyng-mor), Silver How (Sölva-haugr), Loughrigg (loch-hryggr), Fairfield (fær-fjall), Red Screes (raud-skridhur), and on the left Weatherlam (vedhr-hjalmr) and all the fells and dales, moors and meres, which cannot be named without talking Norse.
Descending to the weir which was built by the late Mr. Marshall, to throw into one the three Monk Coniston Tarns, as the sheet of water is still called, a broken path leads us down past the waterfall of Tom or Tarn Gill, romantically renamed Glen Mary, and now even "St. Mary's Glen," and out upon the road opposite Yewtree House, behind which stood the famous old yew blown down in the storm of 22nd December, 1894. Turning to the right, we pass Arnside (Arna-sidha or setr, Ami's fellside or dairy) and Oxenfell (öxna-fell), and soon look down upon Colwith (Koll-vidhr, "peak-wood" from the peaked rocks rising to the left above it; or Kol-vidhr, wood in which charcoal was made). We quit the road to Skelwith (skál-vidhr, the wood of the scale or shed) and descend to Colwith Feet (fit, meadow on the bank of a river or lake), and ascend again to Colwith Force (fors, waterfall), and pass the Tarn to Fell Foot, an old manor house, bought in 1707 by Sir Daniel Fleming's youngest son Fletcher, ancestor of the Flemings of Rayrigg, who placed his coat of arms over the door (as Mr. George Browne of Troutbeck says—Cumb. and West. Antiq. Soc. Transactions, vol. xi., p. 5).
Permission is readily given to view the terraced mound behind the house, in which Dr. Gibson and Mr. H. S. Cowper have recognized a Thingmount such as the Vikings used for the ceremonies of their Thing or Parliament. There was one in Dublin, the Thingmote; the Manx Tynwald is still in use; and the name Thingvöllr (thing-field) survives at Thingwall in Cheshire, South Lancashire, and Dumfriesshire. On the steps of the mound the people stood in their various ranks while the Law-speaker proclaimed from the top the laws or judgments decreed by the Council. Eastward from the mount, to make the site complete, a straight path should lead (as in the Isle of Man) to a temple by a stream or well; and around should be flat ground enough for the people to camp out, for they met at midsummer and spent several days in passing laws, trying suits, talking gossip, driving bargains, and holding games—as if it were Grasmere Sports and Wakefield Competition, hiring fair and cattle market, County Council and Assizes, all rolled into one. These requirements are perfectly met by this site, which is also in a conveniently central position, with Roman roads and ancient paths leading to it in all directions through Lakeland.
From other sources than place-names—from Norse words in the present dialect as analysed by Mr. Ellwood, we learn that the Vikings settled here as farmers. The words they have handed down to their descendants are not fighting words, but farming words—names of agricultural tools and usages, and the homely objects of domestic life.
The Norse settlement appears, therefore, to be an immigration, not of invaders, but of refugees; and the event which first caused it was perhaps the raid of King Harald Fairhair, about 880-890, on the Vikings of the Hebrides, Galloway, and the Isle of Man.
Gradually they spread from the coast into the fells, until they had filled all the hill country; and if we set down their first arrival as about 890, we find that for no less than three hundred years they were left in possession of the lands they settled, and in enjoyment of liberty to make their own laws and to rule their own commonwealth at the Thingmount on which we are standing.