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Oral History

History > Oral History > The naming of rocky places.

History > Oral History

submitted by Nikos Sotirxos on 15.01.2005

The naming of rocky places.

Της γριάς το πήδημα- the old lady’s jump: given it’s name after an old woman jumped from the rocks, in what was assumed to be suicide.
Κακόπλακα- “bad” plaque: the place where, in olden times, people collected a specific mineral that, when ground to dust, was used as cement on the houses.
Μελιδόνι: it is assumed that, as the first synthetic of the word is “meli” meaning honey, the name was derived from either the finding of honey or from beekeepers in the area. In reality, the name comes from the word “idoni”, the last synthetic, meaning pleasure, as it was a place where the local lords gathered for merry-making and sport.
Kapsali itself was named thus because, when the English were in possession of the Eftanisa and had a naval base in Avlemonas, having decided to make the bay of Kapsali a second base, as a test to the officer they planned to put in charge, he was ordered to light gunpowder in his closed fist, and in doing so he singed “kapsalise” his beard.
There are also a few places named after people who have been drowned or washed up there by storms, and some are thought cursed, like a place under Trahilas mountain where people once tried to build a water mill and many drowned in the effort and later on by chance.

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