Weisse Elster - Meaning of The Name

Meaning of The Name

Although "Elster" is German for "magpie", the origin of the name has nothing to do with the bird. It is of Slavic origin: alstrawa = hurrying. The White Elster never meets the Black Elster, which flows from Lusatia into the River Elbe. The rivers have the names "white" and "black" to distinguish between them.

The White Elster flows through the cities of Plauen, Greiz, Gera, Zeitz, Pegau and Leipzig. It flows into the river Saale in Halle.

In the history of the Napoleonic Wars, the river is notable as the place where Józef Antoni Poniatowski died in 1813.

Read more about this topic:  Weisse Elster

Famous quotes containing the words the name, meaning of and/or meaning:

    “There is the name and the thing; the name is a sound which sets a mark on and denotes the thing. The name is no part of the thing nor of the substance; it is an extraneous piece added to the thing, and outside of it.”
    —Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)

    “But, most of all, the Great Society is not a safe harbor, a resting place, a final objective, a finished work. It is a challenge constantly renewed, beckoning us toward a destiny where the meaning of our lives matches the marvelous products of our labor.”
    —Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)

    “The fact that life has no meaning is a reason to live—moreover, the only one.”
    —E.M. Cioran (b. 1911)