The East Riding and Bcozvnlf 327 



est/ which gave its earHer name of Inderawood to Beverley, 

 extended all the way from that settlement to Driffield,- so that 

 Beverley was known as 'in the wood of the Deirans,'^ as Driffield^ 

 is conjectured to mean 'the field of the Deirans.' 



Beverley lies near the western boundary of the district of 

 Holderness, which is enclosed between the Wold hills, the North 

 Sea, and the Humber, its greatest length being somewhat less than 

 forty miles, and its extreme breadth about sixteen. Of its 380 

 square miles of territory, about seventy are marshland, much of 

 which has been reclaimed since the eighteenth century. In this 

 tract have been found many fossil remains of animals, teeth and 

 tusks of the mammoth, elephant's bones and tusks, bones of the 

 red and fallow deer, and, in one place, the head and horns of a 

 great Irish elk.* In Waghen Fen, near Beverley, yews, birches, 

 oaks, firs, alders, and hazels, were found lying one over another 

 in extensive layers,"^ reminding one of Beozv. 1363-4,® 'Over it 

 hang groves in hoary whiteness ; a forest with fixed roots bendeth 

 over the waters,' just as the tusks of the Elephantidae may help to 

 account for the hildetuxum of Beozv. 1511, though here the wild 

 boar may also be thought of.'' When one considers these fens, 

 ancient and modern, it is not surprising that Chaucer should thus 

 characterize the district : 



Lordinges, ther is in Yorkshire, as I gesse, 

 A mershy contree, called Holdernesse. 



Beverley itself, we should remember, is named from the beavers 

 that freciuented it. 



Nor is it only in Holderness that such marshland is found 

 hereabouts. Phillips' map discloses great fens between Ouse and 

 Trent — near Thorne, and Goole, and Howden. Of the latter 



^ This has been described as 'a land of wild forest and waters, interspersed 

 with green pasture-lands' (Diet. Chr. Biog., loc. cif.). 



^ Bright, p. 355, note 5. For the antithesis of 'field' and 'wood' see Green, 

 p. 348, note I ; N. E. D., under 'fielden.' 



^ Ecd. Hist. 5. 2, 6. 



* Phillips, pp. 55, 56, 60, 64; Murray, p. 126; White, p. 62. 



° Phillips, p. 64; cf. White, p. 49. 



' But cf . p. 332, note 2. 



' Cf. p. 2?>2i^ note 2. The walrus, tlie narwhal, and the swordfish are 

 hardly to be tliought of, as not frequenting these waters, though the walrus 

 was not altogether unknown. 



