Re : [tied] Re: Negau

>
> What does all the above have to do with <league> (lieue, legua, lega,
> etc.) = "approximately three miles" (or 4 or 5 kilometres, etc.)?
> (and why are my misgivings unfounded?) It surely wasn't equal to
> the distance plowed in one direction by a team of oxen, which is
> called a "furlong" in English and equals 220 yards or 660 feet (1/8
> of a mile, therefore approx. 1/24 of a league), if that's what you
> were driving at (at the link for "heavy ploughs"). If a plowed
> field typically consisted of 24 furrows each 1 furlong long and
> therefore totalling 1 league if measured in a straight line, I
> still don't see why people would use this as a measure of distance
> rather than area.

It seems delimiting something by ploughing around it is an old idea.
Folk tales are full of 'as much land as you can plough around in a
day'. And once you do that, the next step is 'as long as you must
plough to get around that piece of land'.

> Interesting to learn about the rites associated with founding a
> city among the Latins. But what about the old idea that <urbs> is
> for <hurbs>, in turn from *ghrdh- or *ghordh-, like OCS <gradU> and
> Gmc *gardaz?

I don't know. The article caught my eye because of the 'ploughing
around' idea.


Torsten