An interesting question came my way shortly before settling down to write these notes. On the face of things, it seems a simple query but in fact it raises a few more questions.

It was “Is there any difference between a causey and a footpath, or a causey and a trod?

When I was child in Glaisdale deep in the North York Moors, a path paved with curved sandstone slabs extended down Glaisdale Dale, then disappeared as it approached the village, but re-appeared in Arncliffe Wood and continued a couple of miles or so into Egton Bridge. Even as a child, I was curious about the pathway and my parents said it was the Monks’ Trod that led from Rosedale Priory across the moors and down the length of Glaisdale Dale. From there, so I was told, it followed a route down Eskdale via Grosmont Priory onwards to Whitby Abbey.

I must admit that as a child, I believed only monks had trods; the rest of us had footpaths or routes or some other means of walking from point A to point B without necessarily using a pavement or a road. We had lots of paths in our village, most of them open to everyone.

Now, one of my maps lists, under the heading of “Roads and Paths”, motorways, dual carriageways, main roads, secondary roads, narrow roads with passing places, roads under construction, roads not more than four metres wide, roads less than four metres wide, other roads, tracks or drives, gradients, ferries and finally, paths.

It doesn’t divide “paths” into various types, but my dictionary describes trods as paths or tracks with no reference to them being paved. However, there are distinctions among them, eg Bridle Trod, Foot Trod, Pannierman’s Trod, Horse Trod, By-Trod, Garden Trod, Sailors’ Trod and even Cat Trod, many of which are within the Cleveland Hills.

I have read that pannier-men used trods and recall some years ago that the Yorkshire Dales National Park authority was to restore ancient trods but a correspondent contacted me to question whether this was a reference to causeys.

My correspondent of that time conducted his own research into the distinction between trods and causeys. He told me that his Oxford English Dictionary records that trod is the dialect word for a trodden way, a footpath, path or way. The English dialect dictionary says that in Yorkshire and some other counties trod means a beaten track, a footpath, a road, a course or a path.

A causey, on the other hand, is a paved path used by both horses and foot passengers, particularly over boggy ground. The distinction would appear to be that a trod is not paved and that such a route developed over the centuries simply by people and perhaps animals walking upon it.

I checked my own dialect dictionaries and they confirmed that (locally) causey means a paved path. Sir Alfred Pease’s Dictionary of the North Riding Dialect defines a causey as a narrow, flagged footpath sometimes paved with cobble stones, and very common along the sides of roads. That sounds very like my old trod down Glaisdale Dale but he referred to particular causeys across the North York Moors. They included the Pannierman’s Causey from Danby to Waupley and the Quakers’ Causey from Aysdale Gate to Tod Houe.

He notes some had been destroyed – in 1927, the causey from Swarth Howe to Whitby on the side of the main road, and another from Lythe to Sandsend were both destroyed by the highway authorities, whilst some in the Guisborough area were obliterated as early the 1860s.

WILDLIFE SPOTTED

“If you want to conceal an eyesore in your garden,” suggested a friend, “paint it black and plant things around it.”

That advice is sound – shadows from plants can conceal a lot. It affects our wild creatures too. They realise just how protective shadows can be, with black animals and birds becoming invisible during the intense shades of high summer.

Sunshine in the woods above Byland Abbey produced darkness among the trees but as we walked, I sensed movement nearby. It was a small herd of fallow deer moving gracefully away at our approach. A straggler was coloured black and it remained motionless, quite invisible for a few seconds until it stepped into a pool of sunlight. It was astonishing to realise that such a large creature could become invisible at close range.

Similarly on my morning walk, I sensed a presence only yards away behind a hedge at the other side of the lane. It comprised clipped hawthorn but some of its trees were covered in ivy that had spread into the hedgerow. I could see a vague black outline close to the far side of the hedge, motionless in shadows cast by the sun. At that time I was acutely aware that a large black cat-like animal had been reported in our vicinity. The sightings, all anecdotal, suggested it was a panther but was my sighting such an animal? At that moment, a car passed between us and in those seconds the creature vanished. I cannot be certain what I saw except it was not as large as a fallow deer. It was more the size of a Labrador, so could it have been a fox?

Or nothing more exciting than a dog?

In that vicinity, I have previously seen a large male fox with a very dark coat, and foxes can appear in various shades including black.

In my part of Yorkshire, wild black rabbits are fairly common too. These are not domestic bunnies that have escaped but a strain that appears to survive despite their close association with others with normal grey-brown fur. Locally, numbers fluctuate from year to year but black rabbits can be found on some off-shore islands. There, they may be isolated from those of other colours, but nonetheless black ones remain fairly common on the mainland.

As a great deal of rabbit activity takes place at night, those black ones can probably consider themselves rather safe but even in daytime, they can become invisible in the shadows of dense vegetation and over-hanging hedgerows..

The same applies to our wild birds. One that has colour variations is the pheasant and although there are occasional reports of black ones, these might in fact be very dark green males. They can appear black in some conditions although there is a grey variety and some cock pheasants may display black bars.

Male blackbirds can also disappear like magic among our garden plants and all this reminds me of the poet Shelley who wrote of splendour among the shadows. Perhaps he meant wild life among the shadows?