Pogbie | Toponymy | Forum

I absolutely agree with you, Carole, the SPNS conference was a great venue. I did have my thoughts on Pogbie as well, but rather on possible Scandinavian origins to the specific. Words in initial p- in Scandinavian are generally condsidered to be loanwords into Scandinavian themselves, and that may be so here, also. However, if we remain at the derivation from ON púki, then I am slightly surprised that it is always the 'supernatural being' that is being stressed. There is also another meaning to the word, namely 'little boy, in Scandinavian. Not so much used in Danish anymore, albeit recorded: http://ordnet.dk/ods/ordbog?query=puge but used in Scanian as påg 'boy'. There is also another word in Scandinavian, albeit a loan from probably Low German, poge (http://ordnet.dk/ods/ordbog?as.....uery=poge-), which has a range of meanings, such as 'stick, rod' and 'fence, enclosure'. I wonder whether this could be a possibility also. However, Low German loans in Scandinavian are considered to be of Medieval origin, so there is a temporal problem in this suggestion.

Thanks for the reply, Carole, very interesting indeed! There are several place-names in Denmark with the element 'barn' as a specific. I have never done a search for other words for offspring - perhaps something interesting could turn up? I think I'll check that out in due course. Thanks, Carole!