I have noticed cross-hatching in early woodcuts (these are NOT woodblock or wood engravings), but I do not understand HOW it is done ... can anyone shed light on this?

What I do not understand is that a woodcut is produced by cutting away the none printing areas ... leaving the areas to be printed untouched ... so how do they make a printed line which appears to have ANOTHER printed line running through it? It would make sense if the print was produced by the inaglio method (that way I understand - all the cutter needs to do is to 'draw' onto the plate with a blade or burin ... they can then easily cross-hatch by just running the blade along the plate) - but a wood cut is not produced like that.

Early Japanese woodcuts seem to be even more intriguing in that some of them appear to employ 'dots' to give shading ... but, surely, the woodcutter is not going to cut away the areas around a dot ... are they?

Please help me ... before I go mad!! What is the secret?