Note FJ — 1820
Reading edition
"Adopting the view that Sonnets IX. and X. refer to the stepping-stones at Dale Head, the position of the 'Faëry Chasm,' which has often caused perplexity, becomes clear. It must be looked for not below but considerably above Seathwaite, and is, in fact, the very next striking feature that occurs after the stepping-stones at Dale Head are passed. It is, I believe, the rocky gorge which is crossed by Birks Brig.
The stream is here precipitated down a series of falls, and at the same time is forced into a much narrower channel than it has hitherto occupied. In its downward course it is thrust from side to side in a series of rebounds, the effect being that the flood is churned into a mass of foam, while the rocks between which it is driven are scooped and chiselled into the most fantastic shapes—basins and niches, caverns and arches, and pillars with an odd spiral twist. Anything of a more elfin character could hardly be conceived.
The turbulence of the water as it descends towards the bridge is very well expressed in the charming little sketch given at page 245 of Mrs. Lynn Linton's Lake Country, but the cleft itself is not there represented. Of that, or a part of it, an illustration has been given by Mr. Chattock in his etchings of the River Duddon published in 1884 by the Fine Art Society.
Neither Mr. Chattock nor Mrs. Lynn Linton has, however, identified the spot with the 'Faëry Chasm.' Mr. Chattock associates it with Sonnet XX., though the imagery of that sonnet must, as he himself confesses, have been 'inspired by some scene farther down the river,' while Mrs. Lynn Linton (p. 251) finds the 'Faëry Chasm' at Gowdrel Crag. This latter view, which is, apparently, that adopted also by Canon Rawnsley, is a very possible alternative, and is favoured by the fact that the bed of the stream is at that point strewn with blocks of sky-blue stone. In that case Sonnets XI. and XII. refer to the same chasm. Mr. Goodwin in Through the Wordsworth Country, illustrates a note on the Faëry Chasm by a picture of the chasm at Wallabarrow, and of all the 'clefts' this best fits with the epithet 'sunless'; but is it not too vast for fairy scenes?
I could not learn that any faëry tradition was associated with either place." (Herbert Rix.)
"I cannot rest satisfied that the Faëry Chasm of Sonnet XI. is to be looked for at Birks Brig. No sky-blue stone, above water or below, can be pointed out—
As a smooth stage on which the tiny elves Could leave their foot-prints as they danced in secret revels.
But if the wanderer by Duddon Vale rejoins the road till it passes these same farm buildings further down the valley, will strike into the field, and, attracted by the roar of the stream, search for the locality set forth in Sonnet XII., he will find in mid-stream a huge blue-grey boulder that may have suggested Sonnet XI. to the poet." (H. D. Rawnsley.)