Salme (Salm)

Seemingly derived from a maritime term for a deep, narrow strait or sound between two islands (see also Väina). There is a Suur salm (great strait) in greater Tallinn between the islands of Aegna and Kräsuli (from Swedish Gräsö, grass island). And in Saaremaa, where Silm tends to occur more frequently than Salm, there is a Vahase silm, aka Vahase salm, aka Vahasuu (vaha = wax, suue:suudme = estuary, embouchure, muzzle of a gun, etc.) between Abruka and Vahase islands south of Kuressaare. Street formerly known as Militärstraße (1913) or Военная ул. (1907), both meaning military, then Sõja, war, till 1951. But also parallel to Linda and hence another Kalevipoeg character. Salme was a hen who incubated the grouse’s egg from which her ‘sister’ Linda hatched, then married the Youth of the Stars and disappeared from the story (related to Latvian goddess Saule, sun goddess and spinner of sunbeams?). However, hundreds of other Salme stories existed pre Kreutzwald. Saaremaa’s Salme is also location of what is so far the earliest evidence of vikings, two ships, built maybe 650-700, used for burial and dated to around 700-750. The kick-off for the viking age has generally been accepted as the attack on Lindisfarne in Northumbria, UK, in 793, but evidence from the ship burial puts this 50+ years earlier.