Also 4–5 felle, 4–7 fel. [a. ON. fiall (Sw. fiäll, Da. fjeld) mountain, perh.:—OTeut. *felzo(m, related by ablaut to *faliso-, OHG. felis, mod.G. fels rock.]
1. A hill, mountain. Obs. exc. in proper names of hills in the north-west of England, as Bowfell, Scawfell, etc.
a. 1300. Cursor M., 6461 (Cott.).
| Moyses went vp-on þat fell, | |
| And fourti dais can þer-on duell. | |
| Ibid., 22534 (Cott.). | |
| ée dais up-rise, þe fells dun fall. |
c. 1400. Maundev. (Roxb.), xiv. 64. Fra Tortouse passez men to Tryple by see, or elles by land thurgh þe straytes of mountaynes and felles.
c. 1470. Hardyng, Chron., CIII. vii. His graue is yet, men saye, vpon the fell.
1535. Stewart, Cron. Scot., III. 435.
| With clarions cleir bemand lyke ony bell, | |
| Quhomeof the sound did found attouir the fell. |
1610. Holland, Camden’s Brit., I. 755. High topped hilles and huge fels standing thicke together (which they tearme Forness-fells).
2. A wild, elevated stretch of waste or pasture land; a moorland ridge, down. Now chiefly in the north of England and parts of Scotland. Formerly often in phr. Frith (firth) and fell: see FRITH.
a. 1300. Cursor M., 7697 (Cott.).
| In feild and tun, in frith and fell, | |
| Saul soght dauid for to quell. |
c. 1420. Anturs of Arth., iv.
| Thay questun, thay quellun, | |
| By frythun, by fellun. |
1486. Bk. St. Albans, E j a. Wheresoeuer ye fare by fryth or by fell.
1549. Compl. Scot., vi. 66. The laif of ther fat flokkis follouit on the fellis.
1562. Turner, Herbal, II. 57 a. Feniculum … groweth in … wild mores, called felles.
1612. Drayton, Poly-olb., xvii.
| The Syluans that about the neighbouring woods did dwell, | |
| Both in the tufty Frith and in the mossy Fell. |
1769. Gray, Lett., Wks. 1836, IV. 145. Greystock town and castle … lie only 3 miles (over the Fells) from Ulzwater.
1867. Jean Ingelow, Glayds, 169.
| With fell and precipice, | |
| It ran down steeply to the water’s brink. |
1872. Jenkinson, Guide Eng. Lakes (1879), 121. The fell is ascended by the side of a ravine, down which flows a streamlet.
1880. Miss Broughton, Sec. Th., III. i. Fells and becks, whose cool memory has often come back … to her.
¶ b. In 16–17th c. understood to mean: A marsh, fen.
1514. Fitzherb., Just. Peas (1538), 115. Lowe grounds for medowes, felles, fennes.
1583. Stanyhurst, Æneis, I. (Arb.), 23. Throgh fels and trenches thee chase thee coompanye tracked.
1611. Speed, Theat. Gt. Brit., To the Reader. Her Seas and Riuers so stored with Fish, and her Fels and Fens so replenished with wild foule, that they euen present themselues for ready prey to their takers; briefly, euery soile is so enriched with plenty and pleasures, as the inhabitants thinke there is no other Paradice in the earth but where themselues dwell.
1612. Drayton, Poly-olb., iii. 42.
| Away yee barb’rous Woods; How euer yee be plac’t | |
| On Mountaines, or in Dales, or happily be grac’t | |
| With floods or marshie fels, with pasture, or with earth | |
| By nature made to till. |
c. Sc. ‘A field pretty level on the side or top of a hill’ (Burns, Glossary, in Poems, 1787).
1794. Burns, Now Westlin Winds, ii.
| The partridge loves the fruitful fells; | |
| The plover loves the mountains. |
3. attrib., as in fell-berry, -foot, -gate, -head, -land (hence -lander), -mouse, -mutton, -range, -ridge, -sheep, -side, -top; fell-bloom, the flower of Bird’s-foot Trefoil, Lotus corniculatus (Jam.); fell-thrush, the missel-thrush.
1884. Pall Mall G., 16 July, 4/2. We make wonderfully good *fell-berry puddings.
1761. in Wesley’s Jrnl., 18 April (1827), III. 49. ‘Take the galloway, and guide them to the *Fell foot.’
1867. Smyth, Sailor’s Word-bk., *Fell-head, the top of a mountain not distinguished by a peak.
1890. Westmoreland Gaz., 8 Nov., 4/3. 2,640 Acres of *Fell Land.
1774. T. West, Antiq. Furness, p. xiv. The *fellanders of Furness.
1874. G. W. Dasent, Tales from Fjeld, 332. There was no end to the *fell-mouse’s greediness.
1769. Gray, Lett., Wks. 1836, IV. 158. *Fell-mutton is now in season.
1864. [H. W. Wheelwright], Spring Lapl., 45. The great dividing *fell-range between Sweden and Norway.
1886. Pall Mall G., 6 Aug., 5/2. The ptarmigan … soaring over the *fell-ridge with a low chuckle. Ibid., 9 Aug., 4/1. The *fell sheep suffered severely.
1862. T. Shorter, in Weldon’s Register, Aug., 24. His early *fell-side neighbours.
1872. Jenkinson, Guide Eng. Lakes (1879), 322. A point on the fell-side is reached where are two paths in opposite directions.
1879. Cumbrld. Gloss., Suppl., *Fell thrush.
1886. Pall Mall G., 6 Aug., 5/2. That *fell top appeared to be uninhabited by any more [ptarmigan].
