Home
Sarve (Sarv)
1) Horn, antler. A rhinoceros is ninasarvik, i.e. a ‘nose-behorned’, and to sow your wild oats is oma sarvi maha jooksma, lit. (more or less) to plow with your own horn. 2) French or English horn (in fact neither a horn but a member of the oboe family, nor English but originally from Silesia; since a flared version of the instrument was commonly used in paintings of angels, the Germans called it engellisches Horn and confusion was inevitable). Being next to Hirve and Põdra implies the more obvious reference to these. Anagram of Serva.
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).
Seedri (Seeder)
Cedar, Cedrus spp. Any in Estonia are introduced. Began life (1925) as Turgenevi / Тургеневская but, like his first love, crush crushed by another type of seeder.
Seene (Seen)
Mushroom. Known until 1922 as Pavlovi after, sincerely, we hope, the Pavlov (Ива́н Пе́трович Па́влов, 1849-1936).
