In the neighbourhood of Egremont, there is a romantic hill called
Wotobank, with which a traditionary story is connected, and from which
its name is said to have originated. The tale relates that "a lord of
Egremont, with his lady Edwina and servants, was hunting the wolf;
during the chase, the lady was missing, and after a long and painful
search, her body was found lying on this romantic acclivity, or bank,
mangled by a wolf, which was in the very act of ravenously tearing it to
pieces. The sorrow of the husband, in the first transports of his grief,
was expressed by the words--"Wo to this bank!"--whence the hill obtained
the name of "Wotobank." Mrs. Cowley has adopted this legend for the
subject of her beautiful poem "Edwina." After ascending Skiddaw, and
casting a glance around:--
"Here--across the tangley dells;
There--on the misty distant fells,"
the poetess thus proceeds:--
--"But chiefly, Ennerdale, to thee I turn,
And o'er thy healthful vales heart-rended mourn!
--For ah! those plains, those vales, those sheltering woods,
Nourish'd by Bassenthwaite's contiguous floods,
Once witness'd such a sad and heavy deed
As makes the aching memory recede."