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 meaning of красная in Красная площадь (Krasnaya ploshchad' [square]) was ‘beautiful’. A place is named for its distinctive character (well, 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 a 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).