A FEW days before settling down to write these notes, I read an article that had been written by a tourist expert, and it praised the North York Moors for having the scenery that produced epic novels such as those written by the Bronte sisters as well as Bram Stoker’s Count Dracula masterpiece. Clearly, the writer had no idea of the geography or history of this huge county.

Most of us know that Whitby on the coast was the inspiration for the Count Dracula novel that was published in May, 1897 and it was the moorlands of the West Riding hills beyond Bradford that inspired the Bronte stories some years earlier.

Haworth, home of the famous Bronte vicarage, is some fifty miles to the south-west of the central North York Moors whilst Whitby is situated to the east of the North York Moors National Park boundary. Thus the North York Moors cannot rightly claim to be the inspiration for any of those works.

As an author, I am fully aware that once an error of that kind gets into print, it can never be totally eradicated – people will continue to quote it as true. But we all make mistakes and the problem with writers is that we publish ours!

Those who live and work in the North East will be fairly familiar with the geography of North York Moors – we know they are home to “moorbods”

more formally known as grouse; they are covered with ling otherwise known as heather which turns a beautiful purple in the autumn and they support thousands of sheep that live on the heights to roam freely without the security of fences. In summer the moors are memorable; in winter they can be memorable for different reasons.

In winter, ferocious weather can bring life to a standstill whilst in spring and summer, the moorlands are bursting with new blooms and wildlife galore. I have seen those moors described variously as forbidding, bleak, barren, awesome, lonely, isolated, cold and at the same time beautiful, memorable, dramatic and picturesque.

However, the moors cannot be described as mountainous or lofty.

Their highest point is Urra Moor above Bilsdale but it is only 1490 feet above sea-level (454 metres). Many of the highest areas can be found in the central area, sometimes rising to around 1400 feet (426m) but most of the moorland lies below the 1,000 feet level interspaced with lush green dales and pretty villages.

Some of the central moorland villages and dales have experienced past bouts of industry which scarred them – Rosedale, Glaisdale, Grosmont and Beckhole are prime examples due to the iron-ore mining industry but they have recovered from that experience which brought employment and other benefits to the moors. Now they cater for visitors.

In fact, many of those higher moors bear signs of earlier civilisations in the forms of burial grounds and entrenchments, some dating into what are known as the Dark Ages. In Victorian times, many such sites were excavated, not always by experts, and so a lot of their valuable history has been lost without a true assessment of its historical value or importance.

Among the higher features of interest are three conical hills which, due to their shape and location, are very prominent in the landscape. Perhaps the best known is Roseberry Topping near Great Ayton. This hill, once erroneously known as “T’highest mountain i’ Yorkshire” was formerly called Odinsberg, a name which might have derived from the pagan god Odin. He was regarded as a “good” deity, one who would guide the people into life-enhancing activities.

He was also an intellectual who is also said to have introduced poetry to mankind but at the same time, he was a leader of warriors. Some accounts suggest he was associated with the goddess Freya, after whom Fryup may be named.

Another conical mound is Freeborough Hill which appears to be very high but in fact the summit is only 820 feet (c.250m) above sea-level.

This is thought to be named after the goddess Freya who was the goddess of fertility, or it might be named after frithborn, the peace-bond or frankpledge of the Angles. This hill might have been their meeting place.

Alternatively, this conical hill might be a natural product of the Ice Ages, although some ancient legends say the devil scooped up a handful of earth and threw it down to form this mound. An uncorroborated story is that hundreds of war horse casualties are buried here.

The third mound is called Blakey Topping which lies to the east of the A169 Whitby-Pickering road at Saltersgate. An old legend says that the giant Wade, when excavating the Hole of Horcum, tossed some of the spare earth across the moors where it landed to form this cone-shaped hill.

However, other accounts suggest the creator of this hill was not Wade, but the Devil who seems to have been responsible for a lot of happenings on the moors.

These few notes provide the shortest of glimpses into the North York Moors as a quite separate entity from the neighbouring Dales but my own view is that there is sufficient material, whether socially, historically or topographically, to provide umpteen plots for many worthy novels. Time for budding authors to get busy?

Dialect names

Following my notes about the dialect names of birds, (D&S, April 4), I have received two further comments. One is that the wigeon, which is a type of duck, is sometimes known as the phew bird. I don’t think this is anything to do with an unpleasant smell but rather the distinctive call of this duck. It is a whistling type of note which sounds rather like phew.

The second comment was that I did not include starlings in the list of dialect names. Apparently in some parts of this region they are known as gippoes which might be spelt as gyppoes. That is a nickname or sometimes an offensive name for gypsies but I can’t see any such references in my dialect dictionaries.

It is probably a very localised word.

Unconnected with birds, however, in my research for the short piece about the moors, I came across several references to slape. This is a dialect word that means slippery, smooth or even polished. It appears in a placename at Slapewath which literally means a slippery ford or greasy water-splash but slape can also mean dishonest or liar (slape-tongued) whilst slape-shod means to wear slippery shoes. This was sometimes used when horses failed to have froststuds fitted with their shoes, and so they might slide around on icy roads.

And finally, someone who was slapefaced looked rather shifty; slapefingered meant something like butterfingers – people who dropped things, like poor fielders at a cricket match or careless washers-up in the kitchen.