Fenland reeds

I went for a walk with a friend this afternoon along some of the fenland droves, starting alongside one of the fenland lodes. As ever, I marvelled at how flat the fenscape is. I admired the sunlight on the seed heads of the reeds.

The word lode means ‘a vein of metal ore in the earth’ [1] in modern English, but the fenland lodes must have been named when we still spoke Middle English: ‘The term [lode] denoted a watercourse in late Middle English and a lodestone in the early 16th century. The current sense dates from the early 17th century.’ [1]

For context, Beowulf is written in Old English, Chaucer wrote in Middle English and Shakespeare wrote in modern English.

[1] Oxford Dictionary of English