Archaeology

The Anglo-Normans in West Cork: Hiding in Plain Sight, Part 2

Last week we set out to figure why the Anglo-Normans are curiously absent from the archaeology of West Cork. I told you about our exploration of Castleventry, and how Con Manning immediately suspected this was not your average ringfort, and of course, eventually proclaimed it to be an Anglo-Norman ringwork. I am leading again with an AI-generated image – I am having fun playing around with DALL·E but am under no illusions about its historical accuracy!

Our next site was courtesy of David Myler, author of the new Walking with Stones. He took us to see an intriguing site at Dunnamark, just outside Bantry. In his book, David also highlights the local convention that this is a Dane’s Fort – a common designation for all kinds of constructions around Ireland.

This was another of the sites identified by Dermot Twohig as an Anglo-Norman ringwork. In fact, Dermot said Dunamark is one of the best examples of a ring-work I have seen in either Britain or Ireland. Con concurred. In his book, David also highlights the local convention that this is a Dane’s Fort – a common designation for all kinds of constructions around Ireland.

This is another massive fortification, with very deep ditches and a high ‘platform’ as the interior of the fort.

In the National Monuments record it is labelled a ‘cliff-edge fort and is described thus:

Description: In tillage, on cliff edge, on E shore Bantry Bay. Roughly D-shaped area enclosed by earthen bank S->NNE, with external fosse; slightly convex cliff edge NNE->S. Possible souterrain (CO118-004002-) in interior.

In his article in Archaeology Ireland, Con points out that 

Dunnamark was a particularly important castle, having been one of two demesne manors of the Carews in West Cork, and the caput of the cantred of of Foniertheragh.

He also says that a low-level bit of a masonry set into the central mound and parallel with the entrance causeway might be part of the counter balance slots of a drawbridge. Here’s what Con was looking at – it takes a medieval archaeology specialist to recognise such an unpromising set of stones.

Another interesting feature of this site is the narrow channel riught beside the bank, which would have allowed small boats to come right up to the fort.

Our third site may be familiar with regular readers – it’s the site I described as the original Dunmanus Castle in my post Dunmanus Castle – the Cliff-Edge Fort. Go back and read that now and then come back here.

You will see that I was puzzled by it when I saw it and I was really pleased when Con confirmed on a subsequent visit that this could indeed be another Anglo-Norman ringwork. 

Interestingly, since I wrote that post I wrote about the Bath Map of Cork, which shows an actual castle – as complete as Dunmanus Castle, on the site!

Our final site is at Caheragh, and this one is bit more speculative. A high knoll towers above the ruined church and its surrounding graveyard and on top of that hill is what has been labelled a ringfort. However, once again, it doesn’t quite feel right as a ringfort.

It has panoramic views across the surrounding countryside and sits on the middle of a medieval landscape that includes many ringforts, and an area known as Bishopsland, and the winding Ilen river. 

The fort on top has obvious remains of buildings, one of which may be what is left of a small tower.

The knoll, although natural, looks like a motte – why build one if you don’t have to? From the top you can see all the way over to Caheragh village.

For me, the defining characteristics of these ringworks so far has been very much in accordance with what Grace Dennis-Toone laid out in her thesis – strong fortifications, situated strategically either with panoramic views or maritime location. But we know ringforts that are like that too. The extra factor for me is that they also seem like truncated mottes – raised platforms that fall short of the height needed for a motte, but still enough to dominate the landscape. Castleventry and Caheragh take advantage of natural elevations, while Knockeens and Dunnamark have constructed raised platforms within deep ditches. It may also have been that Knockeens was originally circular rather than D-shaped – see how much erosion has taken place there (below).

So – readers, do you have any other examples you suspect might fit the bill for an Anglo-Norman ringwork? It would help if it has some documentary evidence so get busy researching medieval manuscripts. No bother to you! I have already heard from one knowledgeable local, and hope to have another field soon trip in his area. We know they were here – between us, maybe we can re-write the text books for West Cork.

The Anglo-Normans in West Cork: Hiding in Plain Sight, Part 1

Here’s a nutshell of what I have always known about the Anglo-Normans in West Cork (cheesy and improbable image above courtesy of ChatGPT – DALL·E). After they landed in Ireland in 1169, it took them about 50 years to get to West Cork. Once here, they established some castles or fortifications and intermarried with the local families. This state of affairs lasted until 1261, when a combined army of Irish, led by Fineen McCarthy, defeated them at the Battle of Callan driving them out of West Cork and destroying all their castles. For more on the Battle of Callan, see the post Sliding into Kerry, from 2017, by Robert.

So is that why there is no trace to be found of the Anglo-Norman establishments in West Cork? In the rest of the country, at this early stage, they were mostly building motte and baileys, but there isn’t a single motte and bailey anywhere near West Cork – see the distribution map below, courtesy of National Monuments. And the masonry castles (or tower houses) we have were all built by the great Irish families. For a while I thought maybe Baltimore Castle was an Anglo-Norman building, but Eamonn Cotter has brought me up to speed on the excavation results and shown me it was much later.

There is quite a bit of documentary evidence of their presence, though, including references to their ‘castles’ so it has always been a surprise that west Cork is not littered with mottes or ruined towers. Even given the tradition that they were all destroyed after the Battle of Callan, it is impossible to imagine that a motte could be obliterated from the landscape. They were substantial earthworks, as can be seen from the brilliant JG O’Donoghue‘s reconstruction drawing below.

It turns out we have been looking but not seeing – with some exceptions, archaeologists have not recognised Anglo-Norman structures when they saw them. The most notable exception was Dermot Twohig (a contemporary of mine at UCC in the early 70s) who, as early as 1978 described Norman ringworks in Cork. In the Bulletin of the Group for Irish Historical Settlement for 1978, buried within an annual conference report, Twohig reports:

Although I have not succeeded in inspecting, on the ground, all of the early Norman castles in Co. Cork, three of the sites I have examined – Dunamark (Dun na mBarc), Castleventry (Caislen na Gide) and Castlemore Barrett (Mourne/Ballynamona), can be classified as ring-work castles. Dunamark is one of the best examples of a ring-work I have seen in either Britain or Ireland. Castlemore Barrett had a hall-keep built within the ring-work c.1250, to which a tower-house was added in the fifteenth-century. Castleventry may have had a stone built gate-tower similar to the one at Castletobin, Co. Kilkenny. . . Further field-work and excavation will, I believe, demonstrate that the ring-work castles constituted a very significant element of fortification in the Norman conquest of Ireland.

I don’t know what happened, but Dermot’s analysis does not appear to have become part of what students were taught at UCC. Those students in turn became the mainstay of the Archaeological survey of the 1980s and they labelled Dunnamark (i’m using the OS spelling) a cliff-edge fort and Castleventry a ringfort. 

In fact, the very term ringwork (or ring-work, or ringwork castle) seems to have become an archaeological football, with some scholars asserting that we have no useful definition of its distinctive features and most of them are probably just ringforts, while others have championed the use of the term and tried to bring clarity to the debate.* in the heel of the hunt, it now seems likely that ringworks were indeed part of the system of land-claiming exercised by the Anglo-Normans, that they were usually larger and more solidly built than ringforts, and located strategically – near water or with commanding views. As you can see from the photograph below, the Castleventry banks are high, and were originally stone-faced.

In the course of 2023 and early 2024 Robert and I visited four locations with Con Manning, retired archaeologist with the National Monument Service and a recognised authority on Irish medieval archaeology. Con has now written about the four sites in the latest issue of Archaeology Ireland, naming them as Angle-Norman ringworks. The first is Castleventry, to which we were brought by local historians Dan O’Leary and Sean O’Donovan, and I wrote about our visit to that that one here. So go back now and read what we found there and how intrigued Con was by what he saw. This was the site that set him off on his investigations. 

The description of this site in the National Monuments record is as follows:

In pasture, atop knoll on E-facing slope. Circular, slightly raised area (32.6m N-S; 34.5m E-W) enclosed by two earthen banks, stone faced in parts, with intervening fosse. Break in inner bank to W, now blocked up; modern steps to E. Outer bank broken to W (Wth 3.5m), blocked up; S gap leads to laneway; modern break to NNW. Church (CO134-025004-), graveyard (CO134-025003-) and souterrain (CO134-025002-) in interior; second souterrain (CO134-089—) beside outer bank to E.

Recognising that not all readers have access to Archaeology Ireland, and with Con’s permission, I will tell you that he notes that after the Battle of Callan 

in that same year many of the castles of the colonists for burnt or destroyed. Two were mentioned in a single entry in the Annals of Inisfallen as follows: “the castle of Dún na mBarc, and Caislén na Gide also, were burned by Mac Carthaig and by the Desmumu.”. Caislén na Gide has been identified as Caisleán na Gaoithe or Castleventry. . . No likely site for this clearly important castle has to date been identified on the ground. 

After more information on the history of the site and its association with the Barrett and the Barry families, Con concludes, I have no doubt but that this monument is the castle of Castleventry, a substantial and impressive ringwork reusing an older ringfort.

Next week I will write about the other three sites (spoiler alert – one of them will be familiar to regular readers already) and come to conclusions about the evidence we’ve been missing for the presence of the Anglo-Normans in West Cork.

* I applaud particularly the work of Grace Dennis-Toone, Her thesis brings considerable rigour and analysis to the topic. When is a ringwork a ringwork? Identifying the ringwork castles of County Wexford with a view to reconsidering Irish ringwork classification.

Ceannlínte ó Baile Bhuirne! (Headlines from Ballyvourney!)

It was a big day in Ballvourney yesterday: the public unveiling of two replicas of the 800 year old wooden figure that has been central to observances of St Gobnait on her day for as long as anyone can remember – we must be talking centuries! If you are not familiar with St Gobnait – or her celebrations – read my post here.

It’s actually St Gobnait’s Day today: the eleventh of February. As I write this, the congregation in the saint’s church will be venerating the 13th century wooden figure by ‘measuring’ her with ribbons. But also, for the first time, they will be able to view the two copies of that figure which have been made over the last few months. That exercise has been undertaken so that the figure itself could be fully studied because it is of great historical interest. There are other medieval carved wooden figures of saints surviving elsewhere in Ireland, but this is the only one that is still in regular active use.

. . . A medieval wooden image of Gobnait, kept traditionally in a drawer in the church during the year, is venerated in the parish church on this day. The devotion is known as the tomhas Gobnatan . People bring a ribbon with them and ‘measure’ the statue from top to bottom and around its circumference. This ribbon is then brought home and is used when people get sick or for some special blessing. The statue is thought to belong to the 13th c. A second pattern in honour of Gobnait was traditionally celebrated in Baile Bhúirne at Whit . . .

The above citation is taken from The Diocese of Kerry website, which sets out a comprehensive review of the saint and the activities which honour her. Here’s the measuring taking place a few years ago:

National Heritage Week 2023 explains the purpose of the project to replicate the carving:

. . . As patron saint of the parish, the statue provides a tangible link to the saint but importantly represents the long-standing living devotion to Gobnait. The wooden figure carved out of oak clearly depicts a female monastic. It was guarded over the centuries by the O’Herlihy clan, who were the ruling Gaelic lords of the Ballyvourney area during the medieval and late-medieval periods. It remained in the safe-keeping of members of the O’Herlihy family until they handed it over to the local parish priest in the late-19th century and it has been protected and kept secure by the Ballyvourney Church Committee ever since. The 3D project will comprise the digital scanning of the statue which in turn will enable a 3D generated wooden print out. A second replica will be hand carved as an integrative representation of how the statue would have looked originally before the centuries aged and tarnished it. The replicas will then be placed permanently on display in the Parish Church with information signage . . .

St Gobnait in 3D

Above is a view of the original carving (in the centre) with the replica of that on the right. On the left is the ‘integrative representation’ – that is the carver’s interpretation of what the figure might have looked like when she first saw the light of day in the 1300s. On the left is Bishop William Crean – Bishop of Cloyne since 2013: he presided over the unveiling of the two replicas yesterday. On the right is John Hayes, of Special Branch Carvers in Fenor, Co Waterford. He was responsible for the carving project and has made an excellent job!

John gave us a presentation yesterday, after the unveiling ceremony, and we learned how he closely examined the original statue, taking detailed measurements and a full photographic survey. This enabled a Sketchfab 3D rendering to be produced: this became the basis for his work. During the examination he was able to find traces of paint, which enabled him to render the interpretative version with – very likely – a high degree of fidelity to the original.

I got the chance to talk to John and ask him about the timbers used for the original and the replicas. The original is of oak, and we don’t have a way of knowing where this came from. The replicas are of ash: this is a good material for stability and longevity. John had access to a good source of seasoned wood.

The day was a study day for St Gobnait, and encompassed a whole lot more than the unveiling of the replicas (they are waiting under the cloth- above – to be revealed)! Note the currach in the pic also: that’s another project – to establish a Camino tracing the route which Gobnait took as she travelled around Ireland from the Co Galway Aran Island of Inisheer, having been told by an angel that her life would be fulfilled when she saw nine white deer. She spent time in Dun Chaoin and Kilgobinet in Kerry, Ballyagran in Limerick, Kilgobinet in Waterford, and Abbeyswell and Clondrohid in Cork, before finally finding the deer in Ballyvourney. You can see those deer on the stern of the currach, above. There are at least eight holy wells in Ireland dedicated to the saint. Amanda has written extensively about Gobnait’s travels and – of course – about her wells.

There was also an excellent series of talks about Gobnait. Events took place in Ionad Cultúrtha an Dochtúir Ó Loinsigh, which is a great facility in the community. Here we are – together with our good friends Peter and Amanda (you have met them frequently on the pages of this Journal), - waiting for proceedings to begin:

This is the moment of unveiling: the Bishop is accompanied by the Parish Priest – Very Reverend John McCarthy SP – and archaeologist Dr Connie Kelleher, National Monuments Service: she has played a significant role in this Ballyvourney project.

The decoration on the hull of the Camino Currach is based on the depiction of Saint Gobnait in the Harry Clarke window from the Honan Chapel, UCC. The bee image on the right reminds us that Gobnait is the patron saint of bees and beekepers. We enjoyed a comprehensive talk on bees by Peadar Ó Riada – who has first hand experience of the subject:

There were many more dimensions to the day. One of my favourites was when the audience was requested to produce anyone named Gobnait to be photographed with the carved figures. That included the variations of the name: Library Ireland (1923) (Rev Patrick Woulfe) gives these as Gobinet, Gobnet, Gubby, Abigail, Abbey, Abbie, Abina, Deborah, Debbie, and Webbie. Ten candidates stood up to be counted:

Thank you to Finola for providing many of these photos

Rock Art 3D

There’s a concentration of prehistoric rock art around Castletownshend and I am currently writing a paper about that for the next issue of the Journal of the Skibbereen and District Historical Society. There are seven individual pieces of rock art: as part of the research I recently visited the one stone I hadn’t seen yet. Fortunately, we had the company and assistance of Conor Buckley of Gormú Adventures (been on one of his marvellous walks yet? If not, try this one, or this one or this one.) who, as a native of the area, knows everyone and introduced us to the landowner, the genial Bill O’Driscoll.

The townland is Farrandeligeen – isn’t that a wonderful name? A dealg is a spine or thorn or prickle, and therefore a deilgín is a small one of those. So it can be translated as the Land of the Thorns, which can be blackberries or blackthorns – and this being West Cork, probably both. An old saying is Is beag an dealga dhéanfadh braon – the tiniest thorn can cause big problems. Thorn in a hiking boot, anyone?

The land lived up to its name. Bill took us to where he knew the rock art was, and that’s when we encountered the deligeen bit. Fortunately he had a stout fork with him, and took to hacking and bashing his way through the thorns, while we stood back and offered encouragement. The first place proved unfruitful and he moved a few metres away and soon struck gold. Among the brambles, earth, gorse and general undergrowth there was a hint of something white. This turned out to be a bag filled with stones – the very bag he had put there to remind him that this is where the rock art was – but so many years ago that it had slipped his mind until now.

And so the stone gradually came into view until I could finally get down to clearing it off with my gloves. (I was sorry I hadn’t brought the red socks.) This stone is already in the National Monuments Records as a ‘Cupmarked Stone’ (CO151-013) and is described as having ‘at least ten cupmarks’. Bill told us that his father had said he remembered the stone standing upright – it had fallen to its present position flat on the ground since his father’s time.

For more on what a cupmarked stone is, and how it fits in to the general category of ‘Rock Art’, see my post The Complex Cupmark. For now, quoting from that post:

The cupmark is the most basic and numerous element or motif of rock art in Ireland and elsewhere. In the examples labelled rock art in County Cork, they occur with other motifs, principally concentric rings, sometimes with radial grooves, and a variety of curved or straight lines. They can be incorporated within a motif (as in cup-and-ring marks, rosettes, or where enclosed by lines) or they may be scattered, seemingly randomly, over the surface of the rock, between and among the other motifs. 

. . . patterns of straight lines, or of rough circles or semi-circles, can be made out in several of the stones we have recorded to date.

Rock art is widespread across the Atlantic coast of Europe and is believed to date from the Neolithic, about 5,000 years ago. The cupmark as a motif, however, continued well into the Bronze Age, since we find it on wedge tombs and boulder burials. We do not know what the significance of the cupmark is, but it must have held a special meaning to the carvers since it persisted over time and space.

We got the rock cleared enough to identify the cupmarks and I put a button in each one to make sure it showed up – sorry, those are not gold coins. Some of the cupmarks are tiny. You can look at the cupmarks as a random scatter, or as in the quote above, you can see two groups, in which a cupmark is surrounded by a semicircle of four others. 

It was hard to get the rock clean enough to see detail so I decided to carry out a photogrammetric survey, the object of which is to end up with a 3D image from 2D photographs. That involves taking LOTS of photos (in this case, 100) of the stone, working my way systematically across the surface of the stone at three different levels, keeping the camera settings consistent.

Conor had his drone with him – a new experience for us! He took photos and videos of the stone in its general location, capturing me doing the photogrammetry and also a good indication of the amount of undergrowth that had to be cleared out of the way before the rock came into view. (Thank you, Bill!)

I sent the photographs off to UCC, to the Department of Archaeology, where Nick Hogan generously processed them for me, using the Department’s specialised software. The results are fascinating!

First of all, it looks like there are more than just cupmarks on this rock. A long line stretches from the far left (in this image) cupmark to the right hand grouping. There is a hint of a circle around the bottom left cupmark. The three large cupmarks in the right grouping appear to be conjoined, and there is a line from from the far right cupmark to the end of the stone.

You can view the render in what is called Matcap, which creates it in a metallic view (above and below). On a grey day with no shadows, and still lots of mud on the stone, none of this was obvious to the naked eye. There is a possibility that these new elements, rather than being carved, are natural contours in the rock itself. We haven’t had time yet to go back and check this out more carefully, but we will have to do so – and update this post! If indeed the lines turn out to be carved, that fact will elevate the rock from a Cupmarked Stone to Rock Art. Watch this space.

If you’d like to see the 3D render for yourself and have fun turning it this way and that, you can click here. Let me know if you spot anything else! It was good to be out in the field again after a long winter of cold wet weather. It was great to have Conor and his drone along and to meet Bill, who is committed to keeping safe this precious part of our heritage.

Rock Art and Winter Light at Derrynablaha

Rock art can be astounding or underwhelming. What makes it one or the other is light.

This is the rock I labelled Derrynablaha 3. My 1973 drawing of it is below. From it, there’s a clear view across to Lough Brin to the east, and all the way down the Kealduff River.

Irish prehistoric rock art likely dates from the Neolithic, about 5,000 years ago. We’ve written extensively about rock art (and indeed about Derrynablaha) – see all our posts on this special menu page. There are significant concentrations in Kerry, including 49 pieces identified so far in the adjoining townlands of Derrynablaha and Derreeny, in the middle of the Iveragh Peninsula. To get there, turn north from the Blackwater Bridge and head for the Ballaghbeama Gap.

If you go on a grey day with no shadows (all too common in our part of the world), or even when the sun is high in the heavens, you might see nothing at all. You might walk right by a piece of rock art without realising it was there. We visited Derrynablaha this week and were very lucky to hit it just right.

By ‘just right’ I mean that we had a sunny day, not a cloud to be seen, and because it’s winter and we got there earlyish in the morning the sun was low in the sky. That kind of low, raking light creates the best possible natural conditions for viewing rock art, as demonstrated in this post – Aoibheann Lambe’s excellent capture shows how to do it. There are other ways to do it, of course – you can use strategically placed coordinated flashes – something Ken Williams is rightly famous for. You can go at night with strong lights, or you can use photogrammetry to produce a 3D image. But for a truly immersive experience, seeing it on a day like we had is an experience that is hard to beat.

I spent time recording all the known Derrynablaha rock art when I was doing my thesis in archaeology at UCC in 1972. The carvings had been discovered by the landowner, Daniel O’Sullivan, who wrote to the Department of Archaeology in 1962. His brother, John, still lived on the farm when I was doing my fieldwork, in the farmhouse that is now a ruin (above) but which still holds happy memories for me. The remains of a more ancient settlement are also clearly visible (below).

They were visited by the Italian archaeologist Emmanuel Anati the following year, 1963, at Prof O’Kelly’s suggestion and it was Anati who first wrote about this site. Anati, by the way, went on to found a centre for rock art research at Val Camonica in Italy, and as far as I can tell is still alive and active, in his 90s. He recorded 15 panels.

This is my Derrynablaha 4

Subsequent expeditions from UCC, and my own explorations, resulted in a grand total of 23 examples being included in my thesis. By the time of the Kerry Archaeological survey in the 1980s there were 26 pieces identified, and more have been found since then – there are now 29 known panels of rock art in Derrynablaha and a further 20 in Derreeny.

A detail from Derrynablaha 4 clearly showing individual pick marks. The decoration was picked on using stone-on-stone percussion. You can also see how ice can settle on the surface and over time cause cracking damage. My drawing of this stone is below

They are very hard to find unless you know exactly where to go, and I was very lucky indeed to have the expert guidance of Google. Yes – there is a Google Map devoted to Irish rock art! It’s the brainchild of Caimin O’Brien of the National Monuments Service and with it on your phone it’s possible to tramp over the hillsides and locate each piece. We are supremely grateful to Caimin for the work he has done on this, and we only wish all National Monuments could get the same treatment!

Even with this amazing resource, this is not an easy field trip. The ground is steep, rough and wet, and there are barbed wire fences to find a way around. It’s an active sheep pasture, so it’s important to be mindful that you are on private property and be respectful of all farm boundaries. 

This is a good example of rock art that could be easily overlooked. A very faint cup-and-ring can be seen in good light conditions. The obvious hole, however, is not a cupmark but a naturally occurring solution pit

Because we only had half a day, we confined our walk to the area around the old farmhouse and the hillside to the west of it, and managed to visit 8 panels. Even in the perfect lighting conditions we had, not all are easy to see, as they have been exposed for thousands of years and have worn away. But, for the most part, once we had found the rock, we could see the carvings clearly. 

All the panels we viewed had cupmarks and cup-and-ring marks, as well as some pecked lines meandering across the surface. We don’t know what the significance of these motifs are, although theories abound. There are other motifs at Derrynablaha too, all falling within the repertoire of classic rock art. 

Our companions on this day, as on so many of our adventures, were Amanda and Peter of Holy Wells of Cork and Kerry. And of course several holy wells were on the agenda too, including this one near Kenmare. Take a look at Amanda’s brief write up on her Facebook page, or keep an eye on her excellent blog for more about our finds on this trip.

We’ve written about Derrynablaha so many times now – why do I know this won’t be the last time?

Back to Borlin Valley

We have certainly travelled this route many times – it’s our favourite way of getting from Kenmare home to West Cork. Assuredly not a direct road, but spectacular – and you’ll hardly see a soul. Here’s a map – the road is in red:

And here (below) – a sculptural abstract – is the nature of the terrain which the satellites spy on – looking straight down!

We passed over this high road that skirts the valley on an idyllic January day early in the new year (2024). For the first time, we also traversed the full length of the lane that goes into the heart of the vale, only serving scattered houses and farms. This goes by a complex stone circle and Mass Rock in the townland of Derrynafinchin – or Doire na Fuinseann. The group – also featured on the header – has been fully described by Amanda’s post Derrynafinchin: a bullaun, Mass rock & stone circle from a couple of years ago. Well worth a read!

The little lane also passes into the townland of Derreencollig. We were intrigued by some kinetic sculptures we found beside the way: we did not come across the artist, nor anyone else on this part of the journey.

The views into this remote townland and its few habitations is seen from the minor road that follows the contour at high level, heading for Bantry.

If you find our minor roads tricky, then stick to the main ones. But, if you are not in a hurry, you couldn’t do better on a day of winter sunshine than to traverse the gentler, secret ways.

Description is hardly needed in this little topographical diversion. I’m not sure where else in the world you could find your senses as satiated as here in West Cork (and Kerry!). Travel on!

To my mind there’s no more satisfying way of journeying: keep to the crags and cornices of the high tracks.