THE NATURALIST IN NIDDERDALE. 309 
The absence of “ranes” in Nidderdale is not the only 
distinctive feature that isolates it from the surrounding country. 
Though woolcombing was the staple trade till very recent years 
of Masham, West Burton, and Aysgarth, in Wensleydale, there 
hever were any wool-combers in Nidderdale. Weaving and 
spinning “line” (flax) employed women till about forty years 
ago. They made sheets, huckaback table-cloths, and towels, 
many of which are still in use. At Ramsgill, the birthplace of 
Eugene Aram, they wove cotton with a machine they called 
“leim.” A man came from Hebden, in Wharfedale, bringing 
them the raw material, and took back what they had woven. He 
paid them for their work, and left them as much cotton as 
he thought they could finish before his next visit. ‘“Garn” is 
still spun in the dale for knitting stockings; but all signs of 
manufacturing activity has long since been absorbed by the great 
centres, and disappeared from the dales. 
The absence of ranes and of the art of woolcombing in 
Nidderdale are only two of many points of difference that lie 
between it and the neighbouring dales, and the country to the 
south and east. 
Nidderdale lies in the ancient district of Kymry-land, and the 
evidence of names of places shows that the country immediately 
to the south of it, and east of Leeds, was well populated by 
Celts, but the Celts never made any settlement in Nidderdale. 
Only the most eminent hills on the confines of the dale bear 
Celtic names. The dale was first populated by the Angles, who 
entered England, chiefly on the north and east, about a. p. 559, 
under Ella. They appear to have taken possession of the dale, 
at least as far as regards its upper half. The interior slopes of 
the hills, the villages, farms, pastures, sheds, one wood, the 
springs, tributary streams, and the main river itself, bear generally 
Anglo-Saxon names. .Some of these names are too remarkable 
to be passed over without mention. ‘Thus “ Raydale Knotts” is 
the name of the interior side of Little Whernside; ‘‘ Thorpe” or 
“ Thrope,” and “Sten,” villages; “ Limley” (lime-field) being 
situated upon the narrow strip of limestone in the bottom of the 
dale, a farm; ‘'Tiedera Wood,” tiedera being a pure Anglo- 
Saxon adjective meaning “thin,” most descriptive of the thin 
hanger of birches upon a steep cliff of limestone to which the 
name applies; while such names as “ Wising (wiéswng, guiding) 
