15 



We have here another letter on place names : — 

 THE PLACE-NAMK " WETWANG." 

 To the Editor of The Yorkshire Post. 

 g IB _i am not concerned in the least to defend the derivation of the 

 name Wetwang, the possibility of which I queried in your issue of the 29th 

 ult The possibility of such an origin only occurred to me at the moment of 

 writing We must be allowed the pleasure of guessing sometimes at " what's 

 in a name, for though in my last letter I sufficiently indicated the futility of 

 such guessing, especially where local knowledge is wanting, a name-origin 

 cannot always be " worked out." 1 certainly think that Mr. Cole's theory 

 re^ardin" the origin of the name of his parish is the best yet advanced. 



" I must, however, take exception to Mr. Cole's statement that " wheat 

 was not grown on the Wolds till the present century." It is true that I can- 

 not at this moment definitely prove that it was, but I have no doubt that such 

 proof could be readily obtained. Flour was a common form of rent paid to 

 monasteries, &c, in mediaeval times, and the mediaeval open arable field 

 system has been traced back to the pre-Conquest period. Under the Romans L. | 



Britain was a great corn-growing country, and Wejwang was near one of the ~ 



Roman roads. Though the wheat taken from the Egyptian mummy cases 

 may have got into the cases subsequently to the mummies themselves, it has 

 been known long enough, and was as familiar to the Hebrew Psalmist as it is 

 to ourselves. Yery possibly when the reindeer roamed the Wolds, and the 

 inhabitants thereof used his horns in preparing the ground for crops, one ot 

 those crops was a wheat crop. The land which was too light for growing 

 wheat in 1735 would not be too strong for those rude implements. Upon its 

 first cultivation the land would be much stronger than it is now, and the soil 

 would contain much more organic matter. The land might be unsuitable for 

 growing wheat last century partly, at least, because much wheat had been 

 grown there in previous centuries. ( 



Regarding the name Wetlands, Canon Atkinson writes to me :— I here 

 are two places in this parish (Danby) which were distinguished by that name 

 from about the vear 1200 as I know, how much before I can't say. One ot 

 them is still called Wedlands or Wetlands Head. Besides I know of the 

 occurence of the same name in, I suppose, a dozen, (maybe twenty) other 

 cases all going back to from the thirteenth to the fifteenth century, and to be 

 met with in almost as many Cleveland townships. It is one of the commonest 

 old open-field system names. The oldest form I have is ' hvedelandes.' 



In mv previous letter there were two misprints. " Kearsley Gath" 

 should have been " Kearsley Garth," and "Thiep Close" should have been 

 " Threw Close." Compare " Threpdwa " in the Rievanlx Gnrtulary.— 

 P ' Yours truly, JOHN HAWELL. 



Inglebv Greenhow Vicaarge, Middlesbrough, 

 December 3, 1897. 



On finding a rare and simple little white flower on the moors 

 at Scugdale on a lovely day in June, 190J , Mr. Hawell wrote :— 

 " The white flower we met with while descending from the moor 

 yesterday was Trientalia evropcea 1., the Cliickweed ^Vinter- 

 Greeu." 



Hooker says of its habitat " Subalpine Woods from York 

 northwards, rare and local." " Absent from Ireland." I have 

 never previously met with it to my knowledge. 



