Old Norse Landscape Words in Northern England: Sources and Corrections

Fell is Old Norse fjall, mountain. Beck is bekkr, stream; tarn is tjörn, a small lake; gill is gil, a ravine; and force is fors, waterfall, the word Iceland still has in Gullfoss. Norse speakers brought these words to Cumbria and they stayed in the local dialect. The h in ghyll came much later, in the 1815 printing of a Wordsworth poem. This page gives the source for every slide.

Every factual claim in our carousel on Old Norse landscape words in northern England and in its caption, with its source. It is the third in a run: our sources page for the English -by names covers Grimsby and its kind, and the second covered Norse place names in Scotland. This one leaves -by, -thorpe and -thwaite alone and looks at the words for the land itself. Section numbers 01 to 05 match the number at the top of each slide; 07 to 10 are the later slides' places in the carousel. The cover and sections 01 to 05 and 07 use real photographs, credited below.

How we cite. For the words we read the English Place-Name Society's handbook, A. Mawer, The Chief Elements Used in English Place-Names (Cambridge, 1924), and Richard Cleasby and Gudbrand Vigfusson, An Icelandic-English Dictionary (Oxford, 1874), which gives the northern English form inside each entry. For the names we read Eilert Ekwall, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Place-Names (3rd edition, 1947), and his earlier Scandinavians and Celts in the North-West of England (Lund, 1918). Ekwall is older than the current dictionaries, and newer readings can differ; where they do, we say so. Geoffrey Leech's paper "The unique heritage of place-names in North West England" (Lancaster University), which draws on Diana Whaley's A Dictionary of Lake District Place-Names (2006), is our secondary check. We did not read Whaley herself.

Slide by slide

Cover. "Climbed a fell? You used a Viking word."

Mawer: "fell, fiall, ON, 'mountain, hill, fell.' Common in NCy dial.", that is, common in northern country dialect. Cleasby and Vigfusson, under FJALL: "a Scandin. word", wanting in German and Old English, "but freq. in North. E. and Scot." Etymonline dates fell in English to about 1300.

That is why the cover says you used a Viking word, and not that you spoke Old Norse. Fell is an English dialect word that came from Old Norse, and walkers use it as English.

The photograph shows the summit of Scafell Pike. The fell in Scafell is Norse; the first part is argued. Ekwall reads "Probably ON Skála-fell 'hill with a shieling'", and Leech, after Whaley, gives "'bald-headed mountain'". The slide does not choose, and neither do we.

Photo: Peer Lawther, "The Scafell Pike hordes", via Wikimedia Commons, licensed CC BY 2.0. Cropped by us, with text added.

01. The walker's map is written in Old Norse

All four words are in Mawer's list. "bekkr, ON, 'stream, beck.' Common throughout the North of England (with the exception of Nb) and the Danelaw generally." "tiorn, ON, 'tarn.'" "gil, ON, 'ravine, gil.'" Fell is above. Cleasby and Vigfusson confirm the English side: TJÖRN is "[North. E. and Scot. tarn] ... a tarn, small lake", and GIL is "[Ghyll or Gill in North. E. and Scot. local names] a deep narrow glen with a stream at bottom". That is the slide's "a narrow ravine".

The Lake District National Park Authority says the same in plain terms in "How to speak Lake District" (2025): "Many Lakeland terms come from Old Norse: tarn (small lake) dale (valley) fell (hill) beck (stream) keld (spring)." The slide says the Viking Age; the Authority is more precise: "The Norse then began migrating to the area in the early 900s. Second and third-generation settlers from Ireland and the Isle of Man came to Cumbria not to raid but to settle." Leech agrees on the route: the settlers of the North West were "mainly of Norwegian stock", most of them "making their homes in Ireland and the Isle of Man" first.

"Their words for the land never left" means the dialect. Leech lists beck, fell, tarn and dale among the words of Norse origin that northern English took over and that "have continued in use up to the present day".

Sources: Mawer (1924); Cleasby and Vigfusson (1874); Lake District National Park Authority (2025); Leech. Photo: Joe Haythornthwaite (nagualdesign), "Pavey Ark by nagualdesign", Stickle Tarn below Pavey Ark, via Wikimedia Commons, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Cropped by us, with text added.

02. Aira Force and Gullfoss share a word

Mawer: "fors, ON, 'waterfall, force.'" Cleasby and Vigfusson, under FORS, "mod. foss", put the English word in the entry's first line: "North. E. force; a test word of Scandin. language and origin". Their examples include Skóga-foss "in southern Icel." and "Gull-f., Gold-force". So the slide's pair is the dictionary's own: Gold-force is Gullfoss, and Aira Force ends in the same word.

We stop at the second word. A translation of Aira circulates, but the only source we found for it is a popular guide, so the slide leaves Aira alone.

Sources: Mawer (1924); Cleasby and Vigfusson (1874), s.v. fors. Photo: Gareth James, "Aira Force waterfall", geograph.org.uk, via Wikimedia Commons, licensed CC BY-SA 2.0. Cropped by us, with text added.

03. The Norse gave us gill. The h came in 1815.

We read Wordsworth in three printings. Wordsworth's An Evening Walk (1793) still prints gill, with a footnote: "Gill is also, I believe, a term confined to this country." In "Michael" in Lyrical Ballads (1800) the shepherd's valley is "Green-head Gill", three times. In the reprint in Poems (1815) the same three lines read "Green-head Ghyll".

Kathleen Morris, writing for the Norman Nicholson Society in "October 2015: 'ghyll'", calls Wordsworth the origin of the spelling and finds it in an 1820s edition of An Evening Walk; the 1815 "Michael" is earlier still. She adds that nobody knows why the h went in: "was it Wordsworth or his publisher, for instance, who made the change?" That is why the slide gives the year, 1815, and not a name. On what followed she is clear: "Place names such as Dungeon Ghyll have become established". That is the slide's "Names like Dungeon Ghyll have kept the h ever since." The Norse word, gil, never had an h.

Sources: Wordsworth, 1793, 1800 and 1815 texts; Cleasby and Vigfusson (1874), s.v. gil; K. Morris, Norman Nicholson Society (2015). Photo: K A, "The ravine of Dungeon Ghyll", geograph.org.uk, via Wikimedia Commons, licensed CC BY-SA 2.0. Cropped by us, with text added.

04. Windermere has Norse grammar in the middle

Ekwall: Windermere, Wynandremer about 1160, is "'Vinand's lake.' The first el. is OSw Vinandr ... pers. n. (gen. Vinandar)." The genitive ending -ar is the possessive the slide means. Leech lists Windermere first among Lake District names in which "the ON genitive -ar" survives as -er-, with Elterwater, Borrowdale, Harter Fell and Witherslack. Mere is English: Mawer has "mere, OE, 'mere, pool'". So a Norse-speaker's grammar sits inside an English word for a lake.

Wasdale is Ekwall's too: "ON Vat(n)sdalr 'valley of the stream or lake'", and the same name as a common Norwegian place name and as Vatnsdalr in Iceland, which Landnámabók records. The slide's "valley of the lake or stream" is Ekwall's gloss word for word. Under Wastwater he adds that Wasdale is "the valley of Wastwater", "the lake having been called at one time simply Vatn 'the lake'".

Sources: Ekwall (1947), s.v. Windermere, Wasdale, Wastwater; Leech; Mawer (1924). Photo: Mitt Doot, "Kirk fell from wast water lake", via Wikimedia Commons, licensed CC BY 3.0. Cropped by us, with text added.

05. Three languages on one map

Keswick is English. Ekwall: Keswick in Cumberland, Kesewik in 1276, is "A Scandinavianized form of OE cesewic 'cheese farm'. Cf. CHESWICK, CHISWICK." Leech spells it out: Keswick "has the same origin as Chiswick on the Thames near London", but the word for cheese "has been 'Scandinavianized'", the ch sound replaced by k. That is the slide's "Norse speakers hardened the ch to a k".

Aspatria comes from Ekwall's 1918 book, where he named the type. Aspatric in 1224, Askpatrik in 1291: "'Patrick's ash.' First el. OWSc. askr 'ash'", and the second the Old Irish name Patrick. The name puts the tree first and the owner second, which is the Celtic order, not the Norse one. Ekwall: "In all probability inversion-compounds are due to Celtic influence", and "Goidelic, not Brythonic, influence is to be assumed." Goidelic is the Gaelic branch. Norse tree, Irish name, Gaelic word order.

The last line of the slide is the caveat that belongs on every map in this post. Mawer, twice: beck is "in common dial. use in these districts", so "it is no definite proof of Scand. settlement"; fell is "no definite criterion of Scand. settlement". A Norse word marks where the language went, not where every settler stood.

Sources: Ekwall (1947), s.v. Keswick; Ekwall (1918), s.v. Aspatria and on inversion compounds; Leech; Mawer (1924), s.v. bekkr, fell. Photo: Christine Johnstone, "Signpost on Aughertree Fell", geograph.org.uk, via Wikimedia Commons, licensed CC BY-SA 2.0. Cropped by us, with text added.

07. Which fell, beck or tarn is on your walk?

A few more from Mawer, for anyone checking a map. Hause is "hals, ON, 'neck'", used for "a connecting ridge, a col", as in Esk Hause. Slack is "slakki, ON, dial. slack, 'shallow valley'", which he calls "Distinctively West Scandinavian"; Leech gives Witherslack as Viðar-slakki, "the valley of the wood". Keld is "kelda, ON, 'spring'", and Keld is one of his examples. A holm is "holmr, ON, 'islet, holm'", also used of any piece of ground cut off from its surroundings.

One rule before you date anything. These words stayed in local speech, so a fell or beck named in 1700 can carry a Norse word. Leech: "the presence of a Norse element in a modern place-name has no implication that that name is as early as the Norse settlements." Found a beck, gill or tarn that we got wrong? Send the source and we'll pin the correction.

Photo: John Myers, "Walkers on the path to Sty Head", geograph.org.uk, via Wikimedia Commons, licensed CC BY-SA 2.0. Cropped by us, with text added.

08. The Norse named people too

A byname was given by other people, not chosen by the one who carried it, and the sagas use them to tell people apart. Our free Viking name generator draws on given names and bynames attested in medieval sources.

09. Glad and cheerful, on any fell

The line is Hávamál, stanza 15: Þagalt ok hugalt skyli þjóðans barn ok vígdjarft vera; glaðr ok reifr skyli gumna hverr, unz sinn bíðr bana. Silent and thoughtful should a king's child be, and bold in battle; glad and cheerful should every man be, until his death arrives. The translation is ours, and "on any fell" is our gloss for this post, not the poem's words.

GLADR OK REIFR is the stanza's glaðr ok reifr in capitals, with D for ð. Any blade in our personalized Viking blades collection can carry these words, a name or a date, laser-engraved letter for letter, exactly as you approve it. The knife on the slide has a forge-dark spine polished bright to the edge, and a dark wooden grip between steel fittings.

Sources: Hávamál, st. 15, Old Norse text on heimskringla.no.

10. A chain for the walk home

The chain is our stainless steel Viking king chain: 100 per cent stainless steel, handmade and built link by link, in three link widths (7.57, 7.37 and 5.18 mm) and three lengths, 50, 60 and 70 cm.

Caption. Gullfoss, the guidebooks, and the settlers

"Force is fors, a waterfall, the same word Iceland still uses in Gullfoss." See 02.

"Norse speakers settled Cumbria in the Viking Age, and their words for the land stayed in the local dialect and on the map." See 01 and 07, and Leech on words that "have continued in use up to the present day".

"The spelling 'ghyll' is not Viking at all." See 03: Old Norse gil, English gill in 1793 and 1800, Ghyll in 1815.

"Names like Dungeon Ghyll kept the h." See 03, and Morris on Dungeon Ghyll.

"Keswick is English, the cheese farm, only said the Norse way." See 05.

"Aspatria is 'Patrick's ash': a Norse tree and an Irish name in Gaelic word order." See 05, and Ekwall (1918) on inversion compounds.

The rest of the caption repeats the cover and 01 to 05. The photo line credits Peer Lawther, Joe Haythornthwaite, Gareth James, K A, Mitt Doot, Christine Johnstone and John Myers; each file and licence is linked in its section above.

What we do not claim

• That walkers speak Old Norse. Fell, beck, tarn and gill are English dialect words of Norse origin.
• That every beck or fell marks a Viking farm. Mawer says these words are no definite proof of Scandinavian settlement, because they stayed in use.
• A date for any single fell, beck or tarn name. Leech: first records are "typically from the twelfth or thirteenth centuries".
• That tarn means a tear. Cleasby and Vigfusson give tjörn as "a tarn, small lake".
• That Wordsworth introduced ghyll in An Evening Walk in 1793. That edition prints gill. The earliest ghyll we read is the 1815 "Michael".
• That Wordsworth himself added the h. Morris asks whether it was the poet or his publisher, and nobody knows.
• That Buttermere is Norse. Ekwall: "Literally 'butter mere'", an English name.
• That Aspatria is Saint Patrick's ash. Ekwall gives only the name Patrick.
• A meaning for Aira, or a single meaning for the Sca- in Scafell. The first rests on a popular guide; the second has two scholarly readings.
• That howe, rigg or scar are simply Norse. Mawer finds howe hard to tell from English, and rigg has an English twin; scar has a rival source in skarð.

Corrections

None yet. If you find an error, tell us, with a citation.

Frequently asked questions

Is fell an Old Norse word?

Fell comes from Old Norse fjall, mountain. Mawer's place-name handbook of 1924 lists it, and Cleasby and Vigfusson's dictionary notes the word is frequent in northern English and Scots. It stayed in local dialect, so a fell name on its own proves neither a Norse settlement nor a Viking Age date.

Why is ghyll spelled with an h?

The Norse word is gil, a ravine, and the old English spelling is gill. Wordsworth's poem Michael has Green-head Gill in 1800 and Green-head Ghyll in his Poems of 1815, while An Evening Walk of 1793 still prints gill. Names such as Dungeon Ghyll kept the later spelling.

What does force mean in Aira Force?

Force is Old Norse fors, a waterfall, in modern Icelandic foss, as in Gullfoss and Skógafoss. Cleasby and Vigfusson call it a test word of Scandinavian origin. We do not translate Aira itself, because the reading we found comes from a popular guide, not a scholarly source.

What does Windermere mean?

Vinand's lake. Ekwall reads the first part as the personal name Vinandr, in the Old Norse genitive Vinandar, and the -er- in the middle of Windermere is that genitive ending. Mere is the English word for a lake, so the name puts Norse grammar inside an English word.