> For England, Kuhn finds very few <-sta:n> names
> before 800. Later he
> finds an increasing number, among them (Gray Birch's
> Cartularium
> Saxonicum doc. 365) one <Tur-sta:n>.
Maybe we should keep in mind that Torstein does occur
in Normandy as well. For excample, Wace's "Roman de
Rou" mentions three:
(1) Turstin, the chamberlain to Robert the
Magnificent.
(2) Turstin, the viscount of the Hiemois.
(3) Turstin, the son of Rollo the White, who was
William the Conqueror's standard-bearer.
And then there are the fairly common Norman names
Tostain, Toutain, Toustain.
I always thought the Norse thorn (sorry, my keyboard
won't let me write one) become "t" in Norman French.
For example, the Norse "thang" gives us "tangon" in
Norman French.
And <sta:n> is not a stone. Well, I always
> wondered what Thor
> would want that stone for
I always thought sta:n was connected with Thor's
hammer, that is, the thunder-bolt, or "thunder stone"
or stone axe; the (supposed) ancient belief being that
stone axes fell from heaven. This brings us to that
persistent and vexing association of "stone" with
"heaven" in IE (rightly or wrongly, I can't say). H.
Reichelt, "Die steinerne Himmel" goes into this at
length (it's an old study). A bit more recent is J.P.
Maher, who examines the connection between stone-ax
and sky also at length.
Cheers,
Nirmal Dass
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