THE NATURALIST IN NIDDERDALE. 361 
Nid, the name which, from its greater simplicity, ultimately 
prevailed. 
Now Nid is the name of a river which flows through the town 
of Throndhjem, in Norway, and gives the names of Nidar-éss to 
a famous old town at its mouth, Nidar being the Norwegian 
genitive of Nid; and oss, mouth. Similarly “ Nidderdale” may 
be Norsk, Nidar-dalr, the dale of the Nid, but the earlier expla- 
nation seems preferable, considering the three centuries’ occupation 
of the Angles. However this may be, the modern name of Nid 
certainly seems to be Norwegian or Danish. 
From Nidderdale, Great Whernside and Little Whernside 
appear as two distinct hills, two miles and a half distant from 
each other. The name of Whernside is itself of doubtful origin 
(A.S. cwern, O.N. kvern, a quern; and A.S. sid, O.N. sida, side ; 
the first, given by A.S., seems best), but this much about it is 
certain, that the whole hill takes its name from a part of it, viz. the 
Wharfedale side, which is so called. Here are quarries from which 
the stone may have been dug to make querns. The Nidderdale 
side, however, is called Blackfell. In other words, the hill seen 
from Wharfedale is called ‘‘ Whernside,”’ and from Nidderdale 
“Blackfell.” Similarly the slope of Little Whernside in Nidder- 
dale is called “ Raydale Knotts,” and that in Coverdale “‘ Cowside” 
—an obvious corruption of ‘“Coverside’”—while it borrows its 
general name from the larger hill. Whernside is pronounced 
** Whainsid,” which favours the A.S. origin. ‘‘ Quernside” has 
been changed into Whernside, in the same way as ‘ Quarrel” — 
i.@., Quarry—has been softened into ‘“ Wharrel” in the name 
Wharrel Crags on the moors east of Coverdale. 
That tract of moor included between the Nidd and How Stean 
Beck bears the names of ‘In Moor” and ‘‘ Middlesmoor” (Niddel 
mor). I regard “ Middlesmoor” as the older and A.S. name, and 
“Tn Moor” as Old Norsk. The summit of this forms a conspicuous 
hill, 1488 feet in altitude, which now bears the name of “ Rain 
Stang.” “ Rane-stang-en” is the name of a mountain in Norway 
on the watershed between Valders and Hallingdal. “Rani” is 
the old Norsk for a hog’s snout, a hog-shaped hill, or ‘‘ hog’s-back,” 
and ‘‘stang”’ the Danish for a pole or post. The name “ stang” 
occurs many times on hills in Yorkshire, as Kettlestang Moor and 
Stang Brae,’ near Carlesmoor in the Laver basin, and “ Stang- 
how” (Cleveland). Besides “ Rainstang” to its summit, the 
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