TEESDALE PLACE-NAMES. i 



These good meadows are a part of the fertile Netherlands, 

 but the modern English Batts are far from being meadows, or 

 possessing fertility at all. 



In Drayton's time, hat conveyed the idea of fertility and rich 

 feeding for cattle ; in the Polyolbion the term frequently occurs ; 

 at page 3 we read, — 



" Banks crowned with curled groves from cold to keep the plaine, 

 Fields hatful, flowrie meads in state them to remain." 

 and 



. " The hatful pastures fenc't and most with quickset mound." 



Shakespeare says, 



" Have you eyes ? 

 Could you on this fair mountain leave to feed, 

 And batten on this moor ? " 



Here in the l^orth of England a favourite wish of the gossips 

 to a neighbour's wife after confinement was, " A safe recovery 

 and a good batten to the bairn ! " 



" Battening his flock with the fresh dews of night." 



Milton's Lycida's. 



These instances are from the A.-S, latan^ to feed. 



Examples : — 



Outberry Bat. This seems to have been a double misnomer 

 on the part of the Ordnance Surveyors. Outberry should most 

 likely have been Knoutberry, the -Cloudberry, Rubus Chamoe- 

 morus, a plant, which, instead of growing in batts, or low-lying 

 places, flourishes only on hills at least 1800 feet high. Bat 

 ought perhaps to have been flat, and Knoutberry Elat the 

 proper name, completed. See berry. 



Selaby Basses. Low-lying parts by Tees side, near Selaby. 



Beck. 



Icel. lehhry lehhjar^ a beck ("at present hekhr is only poetical 

 and very rare and is scarcly understood in Iceland, and is looked 

 upon as a Danism"). Cleasby. 



Suio-Goth. " leech, rivus a Grr. Trrjyrj, fons." Ihre. 



A.-S. hecc (torrens, rivulus). Lye. spring, rivulet, beck, brook. 



