Saue (Sau)

Fine clay, appropriately parallel to Telliskivi, also the name of a town SW of Tallinn. Originally named Lau or Lao, with Lau not as in laupäev (Saturday), a Scandinavian (or MLG) borrowing of uncertain origin implying washing-day (Old Swedish, lögh, bath or bathwater; Old Icelandic, laug, washing-water; MLG lōge, logge, loige, etc., Mod. Eng. lye, the ash extract used for washing, possibly related to Fr. lie [wine dregs] from Old Irish lige meaning ‘layer’ where all these terms share a sense of residual sediment), but after local landowner; and Lao either a simple misspelling or perhaps a name morphing into one more functionally related (see, e.g., Liivalao, geographically far removed but indicating a possible progression in name abbreviation).