328 Beozvitlf and JVidsith 



neighborhood we are told by Murray^ : 'The fenny country around 

 Howden, extending to the Ouse and Humber, and formerly called 

 ihe "Lowths" or low country, as distinguished from the wolds, 

 remained till the end of the last century an unhealthy . . . marsh.' 

 No wonder that the poet of the Beowulf, if he lived in this region, 

 was accustomed to think of Grendel and his dam as resorting to 

 the fen, to fen-banks, fen-hollows, fen-lairs, and fen-paths.^ 



But the fen-country is not the whole of the region about Drif- 

 field. No less important for our consideration is the great valley 

 of the Wolds, lying W. and N. W. of Holderness ; and, still fur- 

 ther to the N., the valley of the Derwent. These three, according 

 to Green (pp. 60-61), composed the most ancient Deira : 'Hold- 

 erness, the Wolds, and the valley of the Derwent, now form the 

 East Riding of Yorkshire ; and it is likely enough that this local 

 division preserves, however roughly, the boundaries of the earlier 

 kingdom of the Deirans.' It is not strictly true that the whole val- 

 ley of the Derwent is included, seeing that that river, 57 miles in 

 length, and rising six miles S. of Whitby, divides the North from 

 the East Riding, the other boundaries of the East Riding being 

 the Ouse, the Humber, and the North Sea. The wolds are thus 

 described by Phillips^ : 'High and bare of trees, yet not dreary 

 or sterile, they are furrowed, as all other chalk-hills, by smooth, 

 winding, ramified valleys, without any channel for a stream.' 

 Seen from Leavening Brow, about six miles S. W. of Malton, and 

 eighteen N. W. of Driffield, the prospect, according to Phillips,* is 

 singular and delightful : 'to the N., purple moorlands, while 

 immediately surrounding us are the green wold hills, crowned with 

 the tumuli and camps of semi-barbarous people, who chased the 

 deer and wild boar through Galtres Forest.' The part of the 

 Wolds bordering on the ocean includes Flamborough Head, with 

 about seven miles of coast to the N. W., and three or four to the 

 S. W., including, as we shall see, some of the boldest coast-scenery 

 in England. 



Every attentive reader of Beowulf will have been struck by the 

 outstanding character and number of the cliffs and headlands in 



^ P. 114; cf. p. 95. Howden is about 25 miles from Driffield. Such 

 names as Saltmarshe and Barmby-on-thc-Marsh tell their own tale. 

 ^ Beow. 104 764, 820, 851, 1295, 1359. 

 ' P. 50. See also Phillips' map. 

 ■•Quoted by Murray, p. 160. 



