Jalaka (Jalakas)

Elm. Harilik jalakas, wych elm or scots elm, Ulmus glabra. Estonian etymology obscure, said to have Baltic-Finnish roots. While it’s uncertain that its Lith. and Latv. counterparts kalninė guoba (mountain elm) and parastā goba (common elm) share an unexplained guoba/goba root with Finn. vuorijalava (mountain elm) or even Polish wiąz górski (wych elm), the wych/wiąz duo, along with Est./Finn. jalakas/jalava converge on a different interpretation: wiąz means to tie or bind, to connect objects with rope, etc. (Polish peasantry seems to have used strips of elm bark for bundling), and wych derives from PIE *weig, ‘to bend or wind’, which also gives us ‘withy’ which, as all preppers and survivalists know, is another useful makeshift ‘cord’. Jalg:Jala, I hope, is clear by now. Est. pastlad are primitive shoes made from scraps of leather wrapped up around the feet and held in place by cord or laces, and other footwear such as viisud may be made from woven willow, linden, birch or even juniper bark but not, apparently, elm.