THE VALLEY of Fangdale in the stretch of wilderness between Cleveland and North Yorkshire has a name that recalls Dark Age expeditions into the sparse moors - for fang is a Viking word meaning hunting' or fishing'.

Now while it would be nice to picture our ancestors with tweed and long wellingtons wading into Fangdale Beck for a spot of angling, the stream in question is far too small to support a decent fish population.

Rather we should imagine longtoothed dogs and tall Scandinavians, who had grown up in the fjords of Norway, following the scent of beasts and birds into the Hunting Valley'. Ryedale, where Fangdale lies, was one of the last strongholds of the British wild boar before its extinction in the fourteenth century.

And doubtless there were other delicacies there including the beaver that certainly survived in the north into the period of Viking settlement and whose testicles were reckoned a special prize by the hunter - legend says that beavers knew that their testicles were much desired and would detach them from their bodies, as a lizard detaches its tail, if cornered.

Bears may still have clung on in the area into the ninth century - they had certainly still been around in Roman times. Then there were the wolves whose population had to be kept down and who would have howled through the long Fangdale nights, not to mention migrating cranes and herons to net.

Next to some of these exotic creatures our modern obsession with foxes seems positively tame. And it was these birds and beasties that put the fang into Fangdale.

● Simon Young is a historian and author of AD500.