What is mythology?
Mythology usually refers to collections of stories associated with a particular culture or tradition, often they reveal the cosmology of a particular tradition or give an explanation for a geological feature.
Giants in the landscape
The Hole of Horcum, according to local tradition, formed when Wade the Giant scooped up a handful of earth to hurl at his wife, Bell, during a quarrel. He missed. As well as leaving the huge Hole of Horcum, the clod he threw is said to have landed nearby and is now known as Blakey Topping. The causeway across Wheeldale Moor, long attributed to Roman engineers, also carries his name in local legend: Wade's Causeway, said to have been built so Bell could drive her cattle to higher ground for milking.
Wade is not the only giant in Yorkshire folklore. Another story comes from Rombald's Moor above Ilkley, West Yorkshire. Rombald the Giant, like Wade, was involved in a quarrel with his wife, and as she fled his rage, the stones she had gathered in her skirt scattered across Burley Moor and are now known as the Skirtful of Stones.
Similar stories appear in folklore far beyond Yorkshire. One of the most famous comes from Northern Ireland, Giant's Causeway. According to the tale, a giant called Finn McCool built the Causeway to reach Scotland and fight his rival, the giant Benandonner. When Finn saw how vast his opponent was, he retreated home, where his wife disguised him as a baby in a cradle. In turn, when Benandonner pursued Finn, he decided that any man with an infant that size must be enormous, and fled back to Scotland.
Communities throughout history have seen vast and unusual features in the landscape and needed an explanation, and giants, beings of sufficient scale and impulsiveness, were well placed to provide one. So, Wade's quarrel with Bell is part of something even larger than the Hole of Horcum, a way of reading the world that has appeared independently across human cultures wherever the earth looked as though something enormous had passed through it.