German <Horst>, Engl. <hurst> (supposedly different ablaut
grades) "elevated wooded terrain(?)" have no proper Germanic
etymology, I was wondering if there was a connection with German
Karst "water-eroded rocky landscape", Croatian and Slovene <Kras>
(note it does have metathesis), Italian <Carso>, from the name of a
landscape in Slovenia. The wovels are short, so I would have to
conclude: "/o/ normal IE ablaut vocalism, /a/ from Nordwestblock
(migrated south)".
Kuhn mentions -st- as an 'Old European' suffix in placenames, so I
thought...? (Another example would be ON <naust> 'boathouse', the
*naw- 'boat' root occurs otherwise in ON only in Noa-tun.) But the -t
might be added later, as in <Axt>, <jetzt> etc.
Torsten