Product Code Database
Fell (from , "mountain → landscape over the tree line"; , , ) is a high and barren landscape feature, such as a mountain or Moorland-covered hill, often mountain landscape over the tree line, etc. The term is most often employed in Fennoscandia, Iceland, the Isle of Man, parts of northern England, and Scotland.
Scots forms found in place-names includes: Shetland dialect fiel and field, and Orcadian dialect fiold. The Orcadian form fiold is also found independently as "a hill; upland pasturage" (1887), especially in Rousay (1942). These probably stem from a Norn language form akin to *fiel but may have intermixed with English "field", as given for the Danish language cognate fjeld in the dictionary , or an Old Norse analog, etc. The Norse cognate to English "field" is listed in the Swedish Academy's dictionary (SAOB) as Old Swedish fiælder (), to the stem fiæll-, modern , meaning "plot, divided piece of land".
Other Old Norse forms include: fjall and fiæl. Inherited forms include: , fjæld; , fjøll; , fell; , with Norwegian dialects: fjøll, fjødd, fjedd, fjedl, fjill, fil(l), and fel; and ; all referring to mountains rising above the tree line and the corresponding nature, etc.Bjorvand and Lindeman (2007:270–271).
High fell is covered with snow for most of the year and may even receive snowfall during the summer, which, if there is a lot of snowfall, sometimes leads to the snow not having time to melt during the summer, which over time forms due to the constant build up of snow. These glaciers may be 30 meters thick and consist of compressed ice. While not always covered in glaciers, high fell is characterized by such, and glaciers have a major impact on how the shape of the high mountains changes over time.
The term is recorded as early as the 15th century (1460-1480), as Old Swedish høghfiæl, denoted as "high mountain or fell" ().
Low fell rarely have , however, they may occur under certain conditions.
Intrinsically, fell should be above the tree line to be considered fell, which is not the case for fore fell, however, such is still usually included by extension due to their direct affiliation and many similarities to proper fell, both in terms of character and terrain. Fore fell is such that has previously been above the tree line, and thus bare fell proper; however, since the tree line has increased in elevation over time, such have become vegetated, while still being reminiscent of fell.
Generally, fore fell do not surpass above the sea level. As a geomorphic unit, fore fell extends across Sweden as a -long and -broad belt from Dalarna in the south to Norrbotten in the north.
Names that originally referred to grazing areas have been applied to these hilltops. This is the case with Seathwaite Fell, for example, which would be the common grazing land used by the farmers of Seathwaite. The fellgate marks the road from a settlement onto the fell (see photograph for example), as is the case with the Seathwaite Fell. In other cases the reverse is true; for instance, the name of Wetherlam, in the Coniston Fells, though understood to refer to the mountain as a whole, strictly speaking refers to the summit; the slopes have names such as Tilberthwaite High Fell, Low Fell and Above Beck Fells.
The word "fell" is also used in the names of various breeds of livestock, bred for life on the uplands, such as Rough Fell sheep, Fell Terrier and Fell pony.
Groups of are a common feature on many fells, often marking the summit – there are fine examples on Wild Boar Fell in Mallerstang Dale, Cumbria, and on Nine Standards Rigg just outside Kirkby Stephen, Cumbria.
There are examples of fells named "Beacon Fell": Beacon Fell, Lancashire and Beacon Fell, Cumbria.
The term tunturi, originally a word limited to far-Northern dialects of Finnish and Karelian, is a Loanword from Sami languages, compare Proto-Sami *tuontër, South Sami doedtere, Northern Sami duottar, Inari Sami tuodâr "uplands, mountains, tundra", Kildin Sami tūndâr, which means "uplands, treeless mountain tract" and is cognate with Finnish tanner ("hard ground"). From this Sami word, the word "tundra" is borrowed, as well, through the Russian language.
Hills that are over 50 m high, but do not reach the tree line are referred to as vaara, while the general term for hills including hills of 50 m or less is mäki.
In place names, however, tunturi, vaara and vuori are used inconsistently, for example: Rukatunturi is technically a vaara, as it lacks alpine tundra.
Ivar Aasen defined fjell as a "tall ", primarily referring to a berg that reaches an altitude where trees do not grow, lower berg are referred to as "berg", ås (hill, ridge) or hei (moor, heathland). The fixed expression til fjells refers to mountains (or uplands) as a collective rather than a specific location or specific summit (the "s" in til fjells is an old genitive form remaining only in fixed expressions). According to Ivar Aasen, berg refers to cliffs, bedrock and notable elevations of the surface underpinned by bedrock; berg also refers to the substance of bedrock.Nesset, Kåre (1964). No lærer vi grammatikk. Oslo: Aschehoug.Aasen, Ivar (1918): Norsk ordbog med dansk forklaring. Vestmannalaget/Cammermeyer.
For all practical purposes, fjell can be translated as "mountain" and the Norwegian language has no other commonly used word for mountain.
The Swedish Academy gave the following definition in 1924:
"Fell – mountain (or mountain range) of such height that it exceeds the tree line; sometimes especially of a mountain that reaches above the snow line (high fell) as opposed to those that do not reach there (low fell); compare alp, highland; in some areas (especially in Bohuslän and Dalsland) also of lower mountains (of a comparatively bare or wild and desolate nature); in the definite plural especially of the North Scandinavian mountains, formerly sometimes approaching the sense of a proper name, synonymous with the Scandinavian Mountains
Despite the 1924 source's claim that the definite plural form, fjällen, "formerly" approached being a proper name for the North Scandinavian mountains, the term has lived on as an informal proper name for the Scandinavian Mountains, now also being used in a singular collective sense: de svenska fjällen: "the Swedish fells", vs den svenska fjällen, "the Swedish fell collectively". The term is often used in conjunction with going on holiday to in Fennoscandia, as is given by the Swedish 1998 music hit Vi drar till fjällen ("We're headin' to fjällen).
A related term is vål, which roughly mean "highland", found in placenames such as , , etc.
|
|
