Places written in blood

Hundreds of Estonian place names end in “of blood”. A sign seeking blood donations plays on this oddity - “Estonia has 650 locations ending in vere, however, not enough blood. Come and donate!”

They include places like, dog’s blood, star blood, boat blood, cliff blood, bog blood, and lots more that I cannot easily translate. Lõhavere is one such, which could mean salmon’s blood, or it could mean something else, given that Estonians are precise in their use of grammar. In any case, Lõhavere is associated with our family name of Lehova, and so stands tall in our memory as a place of note.

More generally, though, why do so many place names end in “vere”? An Estonian friend in Australia researched several theories.

According to one explanation, the “vere” toponyms have come about where there had been a bloody battle, or where Kalevipoeg received a sword wound in legend, where his horse was torn apart, or other locations of blood-soaked events.

“Then there are other possibilities,” my friend writes. “Places where springs issue coloured water. Pink-coloured earth. Or simply, something done in a red colour.”

Veri – blood – also signifies kinship, as it does in English, and now we seem to be getting somewhere. In this view, toponyms ending in “vere” refer to ancient family or clan names, and, presumably, where they lived.

The pocket encyclopaedia of self-government in Estonia lists 108 population centres with names ending in “vere”. The largest is probably Rakvere, a pleasant town in the north of Estonia, in the area where our grandmother was born. Of note is that the vere-ending place names in this book are unevenly distributed.

For example, 42 or 39% are found in a north-to-south stripe running through Lääne-Viru, Jõgeva and Tartu counties, the last two bordering Lake Peipus to the east. A further 33 or 31% are found in two counties to the west, Järva and Viljandi. The remaining 30% are dotted through Estonia’s other 10 counties.

Not sure what if anything to read into these figures. Possibly, the speakers of the Seto language in the southeastern corner of Estonia, or of the Võru or Hiiu county dialects did not express themselves in this way. Or, perhaps, there is a connection to the folklore relating to Kalevipoeg, the hero of the fictional national epic who did many of his deeds in this part of the country.

I find myself scanning the toponyms, looking for personal names and finding a few: Eerik, Kaia, Aleks and Rein stand out. Or place names of a geographical slant, for example, beach, marshy, middle, heath, east or lake.

In the case of Laekvere, the name is associated with Kalevipoeg’s horse, attacked by wolves one night while Kalevipoeg was asleep, the horse hobbled so it could not run away.

Laekvere is the Estonian version of Ladigfer or Laydickfer, dating from 1547, being likely transliterations of an earlier Estonian name. Perhaps, this name stems from laiaks punalaheks, a “widening gulf of red” in Kreuzwald’s poetry, the horse’s blood or veri flowing onto the ground as it thrashed around trying to escape, Kalevipoeg arriving too late to save his steed.

In the same vein, are there any vere-ending place names near the Kääpa where Kalevipoeg met his earthly end? - his legs severed by his lost sword, awakened from the riverbed in fulfilment of an earlier curse laid upon it, by the forgetful hero himself. A map in the pocket encyclopaedia hints at Ruskavere, Vassevere and Odivere, none of which have any obvious connection to the legend.      

Ultimately, the place names ending in “vere” seem to be largely a mystery, unlikely to yield to any single explanation. All things considered, it would be easier to donate blood.