Mäe (Mägi)
Mountain, hill, mound, molehill... As far as Estonian place-naming is concerned, this is a fairly important entry... Read on, please! Since the highest point in Estonia is Suur Munamägi (big egg hill), culminating at the giddy height of 317 m above sea level (318 at low tide), any toponym involving mägi or mäe can, at most, only refer to a hill. Gladly, I am not the only one to suspect an absence of alpine loftiness in Tallinn. Maie Kalda, in her article Estonian Literary Slum, accuses Tallinn of ‘megalomania’ or ‘heights mania’, and even Kivi (TT) seemed alarmed at finding so many places in Tallinn called ‘mountain’. So let us, cautiously, suggest that a mägi, inside Estonia, might not, perhaps, after all, be what one could legitimately acknowledge as anything involving towering crags, precipitous slopes or, um, height. Snowy tops, in winter, on cars, yes, height no. However, to avoid prejudice among the men and maids of the mushy marshes, we will allow the occasional hill. A mountain in Estonia is more psychological than real and, like fish, gets bigger with each recounting. In XXX Lang, referring to the Late Bronze/Early Iron Ages, we read “The owners of [...] hilltop settlements had the highest status...” and an old proverb goes Kus mägi, seal mõis, kus küngas, seal kõrts, talud soo ja raba sees, where there’s a mountain, there’s a manor, where a hill, there an inn, the farms are down in the bogs and swamps. Historically, therefore, it seems natural to attribute anything vaguely elevated as incomparably higher, especially if you’ve been a serf for hundreds of years. It sets a sort of insurmountability, hence acceptability, to the perceived barrier. On the other hand, modern-day jocularity at the name may also fail to understand original naming 500-1500 years ago when, less familiar with Mont Blanc and K2, locals could well have deemed such a hill a mountain. At the beginning of a name, however, it just means ‘upper’, but see next entry. The Estonian definition of mägi comes from EES, p.294: ümara v ovaalse põhijoonisega kõrgendik, mille suhteline kõrgus on üle 200 m; igasugune ümbritsevast alast kõrgem pinnamoodustis (round- or oval-shaped feature whose relative height is over 200 m above the surrounding geographical relief), and since the average elevation of land at a generous radius of 5 km around Suur Munamägi is roughly 210 m, i.e. 107 m lower, I leave you to your own conclusions... Then again, EKSS adds the rider that Eestis ka kõrgendiku kohta, mille suhteline kõrgus on üle 50 m (In Estonia, higher ground with a relative height of over 50 m, too). They also add the rather confusing definition of “farm (as opposed to cottage); residence (as opposed to sauna, byre, etc.)”, and a third acception as an economically “favorable, secure position”. This changes the game considerably. It now makes more sense to understand a good number of these place names, especially farm names, as pertaining to a homestead, or perhaps even kõrvalmois (see Mõisa). In a flat, often marshy country, it’s best to build your home on the highest, safest point. And related languages suggest similar havens. The commonest placename in the ‘boggy plains’ of western Estonia is Mägi, with Soo coming in in 7th place. In Livvi-Karelian, mägi also means shore/bank or mainland (from an island point of view), as does Votic mätši, along with beach or dry land. If, too, there is a possible relation between lääs, west, and laas, twilight, dark or gloomy (see Edela), could there be any between mägi:mäe (nothing to do with Rod Stewart) and magama, to sleep, an activity in some sense implying security, or even maja, house, both of whose origins are obscure. As to any interrelation or respective influence of mäel and peal (in 1885, two alternative names for Liivamäe were Liiva peal and Liiva mäel), I leave this to another life.