Härjapea (Härjapea)

Literally, ox-head. Two main interpretations: 1) as reflected in its earlier German name, Kleestraβe (1881, clover street), after the copious clover covering the land the road was originally built on, both keskmine ristik, zigzag clover, Trifolium medium and valge ristik, white clover, T. repens, have the alternative names of härjapea or valge (white) härjapää. 2) More likely, the name of Tallinn’s main river that used to flow from Ülemiste lake to the sea at Tallinna bight, covered over in 1914 and converted into sewage canal in 1937 (see Jõe). The expression nomen est omen is commonly-used in onomastics, implying a name to be indicative of future events, often with exaggerated doses of wishful thinking. But it’s usually the other way round: apophenia is believing an association between unrelated phenomena (think Jesus toast, etc.) and what I call topophenia is believing one between a placename and an unrelated phenomenon, for example, Moscow’s ‘Red Square’ being named for ‘redness’, communist or otherwise, when the archaic or idiomatic meaning of красная in Красная площадь (Krasnaya ploshchad' [square]) was ‘beautiful’. Likewise, Красный угол (Krasnyy ugol), which can be translated ‘red corner’, but more commonly ‘icon corner’ or ‘sacred corner’, akin to a western ‘home altar’, is a sort of theologically up-market part of a house, almost the opposite of бабий кут (babiy kut, or ‘stove’ corner, see Saiakang). A place is named for its distinctive character (perceived or otherwise, as we’ve seen before: the Iron Gate, By the Riverbank, Church Street and so on. The earliest records of this name include Haryenpe (1283), Haryempe (1345), Haryenpe (1363). What do we have? If these are actual precursors of härjapea, which they may well be, what would ‘ox head’ have signified? A geographical feature? The site of a sacrifice? The question is open. One suggestion in DEPn is that a härjapea might also have been the name for a pulle (bull), or stone roller, used to haul ships over land, a technique used by the Varangians (with logs, not stone) on their way to the Black Sea and if the ancient Greeks could see a great bear in the shape of a saucepan, anything is possible. Notwithstanding the previous entry (see Härgmäe), härg is said to be a ‘Baltic’ loan word, with modern-day Lithuanian and Latvian being žirgas and zirgs respectively, and former Prussian sirgis. Drop the initial letter and the result is irg-, close enough to erg and ärg, the adding an ‘h’ to which is an Estonian evidence. Interestingly however, while the Lithuanian and Latvian meant horse, and the Prussian gelding, other neighboring Finnic languages (Finnish, Livonian, Veps, Votic, etc.) amble around ox, steer, bull, etc., which EES convincingly suggests is due to a perception of function (draft) rather than form (animal).

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Harju (Harju)

Of or corresponding to Harjumaa (county, inhabitants...) in northern Estonia. Earliest records give Harien (1212), Harriæn and Hæriæ (1241) and there may have been no initial ‘h’. No consensus as to original meaning. The word is said to sound like various Finnish, Karelian, Olonets, etc., words for ridge, harja ‘peak; crest of a mountain’, ‘top of a hill or crest of a furrow’ but also and not unhelpfully ‘sandy bank or shoal’, and the overall sense is not far-fetched for a rising land-mass (see Liiva). Wikipedia and a million copy-and-pastes give “(Latin: Harria) (1200 hides)”, but I find no record of harria anywhere (bar the odd transcription of arria for area), so probably from Latin area, plot of land for building, etc., which did evolve into the land measurement are (as in one tenth of a hectare), and thus an improbable candidate. Other suggestions include the name deriving from the Hirri, a tribe Pliny the Elder relates second-handedly to have occupied north-central to coastal parts of Estonia (but might his sources have added a pinch of subconscious wildness via Lat. (h)irrire, to snarl or growl?). Question still open. Street first recorded in 1339 as Platea fabrorum, then smedestrate (1362) and smitdestrate (1363), all Smith Street, continuing the tradition through the 16^th C with kannengeterstrate (also used for Kullassepa for a while) or tinngeterstrate, both meaning pewterer or tinsmith street, kannen referring more to containers, tinn to the material pewter, an 85-99% tin alloy (tricky word, MLG tinn, tin, tinne, tīn, ten & tēn, given as tin the metal, or objects made from it, or Lötzinn, solder, but clearly an alloy influenced by MLG lōt for plumbweight, see both Loode & Tina, so almost certainly pewter too), while geter, ‘pourer’ or founder, from PIE *ĝheu- also gives us English ‘gut’ and mod. Ger. gießen, to pour (but see Keldrimäe). The subsequent building of fortifications – bastions, ravelins and counterguards – buried the street for a couple of hundred years until the 1700s when cleared and re-opened as harjo ulits (1732), Новая ул. (1767), New Street (see Vabaduse), Кузнечная (Kuznechnaya), oddly, blacksmith / farrier street in the late 19^th C then finally Harju in 1885. Harju tänav was the historic street most destroyed during the Soviet bombing of March 9^th 1944. Arthur Ransome – author of the Swallows and Amazons children’s stories, husband of Evgenia Shelepina (Евгения Шелепина), Leon Trotsky’s one-time personal secretary and, ironically, buried at St Paul’s Church, Rusland, southern Lake District – stayed at the ‘Kuld Lõwi’ (golden lion) hotel in Harju during his period as British MI6 agent (codename S 76).