The mysterious "Wifes" of Ingleborough

[Brains]

Nothing to do with Ingleborough, but I was intrigued by "Michael Wife Lane" in Edenfield. Apparently, the name refers to Mary Nuttall, wife of Michael Nuttall. In 1618, she was fined for not maintaining the road, and eventually punished with a session in the stocks.

I wonder if it was once common to refer to a married woman as "Joe Wife" rather than "Mrs Bloggs"?

It was indeed traditional in the past to refer to a married woman using the husbands fore name, I seem to recall it was particularly used on postal addresses...

 

[AR]

This is the perhaps the best suggestion yet.
'Wyth' most likely derives from wīðig which is OE for a strong willow stem but has also been used historically to refer to willow in general. (https://epns.nottingham.ac.uk/browse/Cumberland/Wythop/532847f8b47fc408f9001059-Wythop)

It would make sense given that montane willows were once extremely common in the northern uplands and in the Dales (source: I work in woodland conservation and am running a project on montane willow restoration). Montane willows exist on Ingleborough to this day, usually on crags where they are protected from deer and sheep.
'Grey wife' could thus translate to 'grey willow' which is a type of willow.
Braithwaite means a broad clearing so is also tree related.
Willow would also work as a substitute for 'old wife ridge' and 'wife park'.

It might be that wīðig evolved to wife in this area and wyth in others. There are some records of broad Yorkshire dialect including consonant changes such as 'th' being pronounced as 'f' or 'v' (known as 'th-fronting'). Sadly we have no records going back far enough to testify this.
'ī' in wīðig is pronounced 'ee' and was unaffected by the i-mutation, however that doesn't rule out the option of mutation occurring on a local scale over the centuries.

To sound a note of caution on this suggestion, in the Dales, the old dialect term for willows and the cut stems is "yether" which I suspect is derived from the old Norse equivalent or through the Scandinavian influence on Northern English.

 

[Tim Pickering]

My cat is hassling me otherwise I'd be more inclined to disappear down the rabbit hole, but so far I've learned that 'goodwife' was old English dialect for a female farmer, and a lot of place names that start with some version of 'good' or 'goody' are believed to relate to this. Perhaps 'wife' in this context is an abbreviated version? My next port of call would have been to establish when 'goodwife' was part of the common lexicon, and then see if there are any records of the landowners/tenant farmers during that period who worked the area where our interestingly-named potholes are located.

My cat is probably telling me to step away from the keyboard and go to bed.

 

[thehungrytroglobite]

To sound a note of caution on this suggestion, in the Dales, the old dialect term for willows and the cut stems is "yether" which I suspect is derived from the old Norse equivalent or through the Scandinavian influence on Northern English.

Ah interesting, I didn't know that. Do you have a source for this? I can't find anything about it online.
Please could you also point me to which Old Norse word you are referring to?

 

[AR]

I can't recall my exact source but I know about it from the derivation of a place name above Barden, Yethersgill (or Ethersgill)- a boggy valley feeding into Upper Barden Reservior. The ON derivation was a guess but on thinking further it's more likely a Northernisation of osier, which a quick look online suggests being derived from medieval French.

 

[mikem]

Wyth is also an "Obsolete spelling of with" or Welsh for the number 8.

The Spaewife

“O, I wad like to ken — to the beggar-wife says I— Why chops are guid to brander and nane sae guid to fry. An’ siller, that’s sae braw to keep, is brawer still to gi’e. — It’s gey an’ …

hagothehills.wordpress.com

Yether:

Dictionaries of the Scots Language:: SND :: yether

www.dsl.ac.uk

 

[mikem]

wið (prep.) ‘with' & wif (noun n.) ‘woman, wife' also come from Norse

Also
https://www.oed.com/dictionary/witch-wife_n?tl=true

Unfortunately another wyth has also come down to us from wyt ( wyte / white / wight)

 

[mikem]

This link suggests relating to the earth mother, so back to paganism ("witchcraft"): https://megalithix.wordpress.com/2011/07/13/old-wife-ridge/

Anyone know if the good wife stones are standing?

Fisher's wife is more prosaic:

The Dodds Round: route guide

Often dismissed as boring, this route up little-known Fisher’s Wife’s Rake path brings is the best of The Dodds Round, says James Forrest.

www.thegreatoutdoorsmag.com

 

[Cantclimbtom]

I was intrigued when I first saw the names.

Took Tatham Wife Moss and Tatham Wife Hole as an example and went to the 1851 OS map to see if it was marked an alternative spelling that might give a clue, but nope... on the map the same spelling as today

 

[Pitlamp]

David Johnson has kindly flagged up another example: "Old Wife's Pot Hole" to the NW of Gill House above Conistone in Wharfedale. Has anyone every come across this one? (I haven't.) I'll try and get some further information.

 

[mikem]

It's a dark ale

Old Wifes Pot Hole - Yorkshire Dales Brewing Co - Untappd

Old Wifes Pot Hole by Yorkshire Dales Brewing Co is a Dark Ale style beer, which has 0 ratings and reviews on Untappd.

untappd.com

 

[mikem]

Feedback at end of (there's also a link to 1920s ingleton guidebook):

Braithwaite Wife Hole Archives - Scribble by the Ribble

www.jacksoneditorial.co.uk

"Talking of uncouth, I’d like to say to an old friend that his suggestion for the origin of the name Braithwaite Wife Hole, is totally wrong and uncalled-for. My thanks to those others who tried to decently explain the sinkhole’s name mentioned in last week’s blog. In what must be one of the longest book titles going (‘A descriptive tour and guide to the lakes, caves, mountains and other natural curiosities in Cumberland, Westmorland, Lancashire and a part of the West Riding of Yorkshire’) John Housman, writing in 1800, calls it Barefoot-wives’ Hole. This name is also found in West’s Guide to the Lakes, 1778/1821 and on old maps dating as far back as 1760. A map of 1890, however, shows the name has been changed to Braithwaite Wife Shake Hole. Just like with many place-names and surnames, early scribes often misunderstood local terms and accents when it came to writing down terms that had previously been passed down through generations of verbal history, so perhaps the original name will remain a mystery – unless you know differently."

Previous post:
"Legend has it that the ladies were chucked down the giant pits after some misdemeanour. But if that were the case you’d think there’d be even more of them named after men."

Old Cumbria Gazetteer - Braithwaite Wife Hole, North Yorkshire

www.lakesguides.co.uk

 

[Pitlamp]

It's a dark ale

Old Wifes Pot Hole - Yorkshire Dales Brewing Co - Untappd

Old Wifes Pot Hole by Yorkshire Dales Brewing Co is a Dark Ale style beer, which has 0 ratings and reviews on Untappd.

untappd.com

Thanks but I very much doubt if they brew it at the location he gave to me, high above Wharfedale! So it must have an older origin.

When I hear back from David I'll post any further information which is useful on here.

 

[mikem]

Okay, it's next to old wife's pot well:

Old Wife's Pot Hole

Old Wife's Pot Hole is a cave in Conistone with Kilnsey, Craven District, England. Mapcarta, the open map.

mapcarta.com

 

[Pitlamp]

Nice one Mike!

 

[Andy Tharratt]

Have you tried Balderstone?

 

[Pitlamp]

Good call; no - but if you have a copy please have a glance and let us all know if there's anything useful in it?
Or anyone else who owns a copy for that matter . . . .

 

[mikem]

You can download a copy for £11, it includes braithwaite and tatham (original recently sold for £15 on eBay):

the index of Ingleton: Bygone and Present by Robert & Margaret Balderston (1888)

Index-Contents of Old and rare books on CDrom.

www.yorkshirecdbooks.com

Actually just remembered where it is online:

Old Cumbria Gazetteer - frameset

 

[mikem]

Brackenwife Knotts & Goodwife stones are also in the gazetteer, but aren't mentioned in any of the old guidebooks. This gives an (American) explanation of who a goodwife or goody was:

Goodwives in the Massachusetts Bay Colony

What Does the Term Goodwife Mean? Those familiar with The Crucible, the Salem Witch Trials, or even life in Colonial America have heard the term Goody, short for Goodwife. The term Goody was meant …

meredithallard.com

Similar in English/ Scots:

Goodwife - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

 

[mikem]

Fairly sure the stones will prove to have been thought to resemblance a group of women standing around gossiping, or a coven, but that still leaves us with Batty, bracken, Braithwaite, grey, old & tatham, plus wife park and old wife ridge (although the last two look more as though they could have referred to real people, whose names are long lost). Of course goodwife (& possibly Old) also brings us back to the witch pagan earth mother connections.