Basking in the morning sun but to the south-east a cloud bank hangs over Commondale Moor

Or is it a mist bank?

I suppose a walker on Commondale Moor will think he’s in mist or fog or if he’s a local of more mature years, a ‘roke‘.

There is no difference really. Both are created when the air becomes saturated and water vapour condenses to form droplets that hang in the air. And if there is little wind and the air is cold they do not dissipate, but hug the moor.

A Medieval traveller might call it a “myst-hakel” meaning literally a ‘mist-hood’ or ‘mist-cape’, fog that cloaks the earth.

It comes from the medieval poem of Arthurian chivalry “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight”.

“Mist muged on þe mor malt on þe mountez
Uch hille hade a hatte a myst hakel huge”

Which translates to:

The moor was muggy with mist, and the snow melted on the mountains,
and each hill had a mantle of fog.