At 8:46:33 AM on Tuesday, June 29, 2004, tgpedersen wrote:
> The landscapes east and west of Oslo fjord are named
> Østfold and Vestfold, respectively. Perhaps *pâlaþ- is the
> Nordwestblock version and means "river-bank, -side".
<Fold> is the old name of Oslofjord; those names are 'east
(of the) fjord' and 'west (of the) fjord', not 'east
bank/side' and 'west bank/side'. ON <fold> is 'earth, land;
meadow, pasture', but I believe that it's been suggested
that the original sense is 'smooth, flat', and that in this
sense it was applied to a broad, open expanse of water.
Brian