Note 6 — LUTZ FOREST

I cannot suggest what Tabalada means unless it be what I think it is—a comical perversion of its Romansh name Aulat=aqua lauta, a name appropriate up to a few years ago, for it was the most crystalline water I ever saw, till we forced some of the discolored Ill to flow into it, for factory purposes at Gais. And the real name of the “Feldbächle” is Montiola-bach, which is also Latin; all that hilly region where it rises used to be called Montiola; indeed, a great number of the place-names I shall be mentioning have origin in Romansh, which is such a detestable word that I mean to call it Rhæto-Roman in future.

Our old Rhætian inhabitants, now held to be Celts and not Etruscans as certain scholars used to maintain, were defeated by Drusus and Tiberius in 15 b. c. in this very plain—so tradition says; certainly the Walgau is marked as “Vallis Drusiana” in old charts and chronicles, though another derivation is yet more plausible (see p. 152). The province was thereafter romanized, and traces of this Latin domination can be found, for instance, in those single personal names like Florentinus, Seganus, Ursicinus, which persisted hereabouts into the twelfth century; the present double family ones, of Alemannic origin, became fixed by the end of the thirteenth. As to our Rhæto-Roman names of localities—some of them speak for themselves; there is no difficulty about Scesaplana, Alpila, Fontanella, Quadera and so on, though it is rather puzzling to find a high rocky summit called “Valbona.” Lutz is lutum, the turbid stream; Ludesch (Lodasco) stands on its banks. Bludesch was called Pludassis (paludes) by reason of its swampy situation. The Fön, the hot wind, is Favonius. Lagutz=lacus, a lake; which it doubtless used to be. Raggal (Roncal in chronicles), Rungalin and other such sites=runcare. Gamperdona=campus rotundus, which you will find most apposite, if you go there. Other place-names are not so easy to disentangle. Barplons=Pratum planum. Vanova=Via nova. The “Schlosstobel” at the foot of Blumenegg castle used to be called “Falster”=Vallis torrens. Trasseraus=tres suors (sorores). Frastafeders is simply “old Frastanz.” One thing strikes me as suggestive. That Rhætians or Romans should give names to conspicuous peaks—Vallula, Zimba, Furka, Saladina: there are dozens of them—is intelligible enough. You can see a mountain from below, without climbing up. You cannot see a lake from below. Yet the names of some of our secluded Alpine waters, like Tilisuna and Formarin, whatever their origin, are not Alemannic and are therefore pre-Alemannic; which proves that these remote and inhospitable spots were already then frequented for the sake, no doubt, of their brief summer pasturage. Whence I deduce that the population of those days must have been denser than one generally imagines. Formarin, for the rest, is pronounced “Famurin” which may be “Val Murin,” from the quantities of marmots (mure montana, contracted into our “Burmentli”) up there. If this conjecture sounds far-fetched, let me hasten to say that it is not mine, but that of Max Vermunt (“Stille Winkel in Vorarlberg”).