Rataskaev (0) 
Wheel well, well with windlass for winding up water. A development of the older, true windlass well, võllkaev, which saw various additions over time from the wheel to facilitate rotation to realizing the windlass was not actually needed. For whatever reason, Rataskaev is today the best-known well of late medieval Tallinn, although there were others: one about 100 m due N as the rain falls, next to the Pikk Jalg tower, another in the NE quadrant of Raekoja plats, and a dozen or so strung out along the aqueducts bringing water from sources just outside the city walls, running from Harjuvärava, through Kullassepa, across Raekoja plats into Mündi, Pikk and Lai and all the way to Suur Rannavärav. Given that the aqueduct was built in 1420-23, perhaps the wells were no longer capable of satisfying local demand. The well itself was originally named Sternsot/Sternsod(e) (±1375-79) and has been accused of various origins. The name breaks down into 2 parts: stern and sod, so let’s start with the first. Modern German Stern means ‘star’, but here it seems to have a different meaning (the use of ‘star’ for multi-street junction does not to seem to be very old): from MLG stēn or stêrn(e), i.e. stone or, by extension, calcareous, lime or what we now call ‘hard’. The 2nd part could be from zoed or zode, saltwater / brine spring, a term regularly associated with the Hanseatic town of Lüneberg, home to saltworks since the 12th C, but Estonia’s relative humidity was probably too high to facilitate salt extraction (see Lasnamäe) and, from a city center location, why? So more likely from sōt, sod, sôd, sôt, soed(e) for plain old ‘well’, although the original also meant as much ‘to cook’ or ‘boil’, as ‘spring’ or ‘well’, a term with interesting relations: both Eng. ‘sod’ (turf) but also Old Eng. soden, boiled > Eng. ‘sodden’, soaked, with the reasonable connection of using turf/peat for heating or cooking and water being released… so my suspicion here is a source of water oozing through the loose limestone typical of the area, in time becoming dug as a well. For information, the well itself is located at ///unless.friday.greeting. Earlier records identifying the well include puteus, dictus Sternsod (well, named Sternsod, 1375), further indicating it to be at the conjunction of present-day Dunkri and Rataskaevu; and sternsode (1379), no location given, but there is also the description platea qua itur ad sanctum Nicolaum in opposito putei (road that goes to St Nicholas opposite the well, 1378, see Dunkri), which seems only to make sense in context and with an added comma, referring to “a property on road X, opposite the well”, a point that Nottbeck III II indicates by his comment in the appendix, vielleicht derselbe (perhaps the same one). The consensus is that this particular well has been called Sternsot/Sternsod(e) since 1375 at the latest. For information, the current well is a replica. For the street itself, see next entry, Rataskaevu.