ANSTHRLD - Group Name Help

[Teceangl]

> Question 3:  Is Land of Thistles an appropriate period group name?
> 
> My own thoughts on question 3 support it as better than a lot of 
> group names I've run across.  The "Land of" part bothers me a little 
> bit though.  If it is a Canton, then it is a geographic space so the 
> "Land of" seems redundant.  On the other hand, Canton of <Thistles> 
> seems a little lacking.
> 
> Since I will see him at Moonschadowe, any comments/suggestions?

Perhaps "Thistle <toponymical feature>"?  Such as "Thistle Hill", or
"Thistle Meadow" or "Thistle Green"?

I browsed _MacBain's Etymological Dictionary of the Gaelic Language_ at
http://www.ceantar.org/Dicts/search.html and got several Old Gaelic and
Early Irish words on "meadow", "field", "thistle" (search by Word, not
Headword).

Feochadan seems to be modern.  MacBain references fobhannan under that
entry and under fobhannan says, "Early Irish omthann".   

Also of interest [these are cut-and-paste from the dictionary] (the {'a} 
indicates a-grave, the {a'} indicates a-acute; for further information on this 
notation system see http://www.kwantlen.bc.ca/~donna/sca/heraldry/notation.html
or ask Daniel Arbalest for pointers to other good sites):

   achadh - a field, so Irish, Old Gaelic achad, Old Irish ached (locative?) 
      campu lus (Adamnan), *acoto-; Latin acies, acnua, field.
   magh - a plain, a field, Irish magh, Old Irish mag
   machair - a plain, level, arable land, Manx magher, Irish, Middle Irish
      machaire, macha
   srath - a valey, strath, Irish, Middle Irish srath, meadow land or holm
      along banks of a river or loch, often swampy (Joyce), Old Irish israth
   dinnein - a small heap, Irish dinn, a hill, fortified hill, Early Irish 
      dinn dind (do.), *dindu-
   cnoc - a hillock, Ir, cnoc, Old Irish cnocc, Old Breton cnoch,
      tumulus, Breton kreac'h, krec'henn, hill, *knokko-
   l{'a}irig - a moor, sloping hill, a pass; cf. Middle Irish laarg, fork, leg
      and thigh, Old Irish loarcc, furca. Often in place names:
   cluain - a green plain, pasture, Irish and Early Irish cluain: *clopni-;
   l{'a}r - the ground, Irish, Old Irish l{a'}r, Welsh llawr, Old Cornish lor,
   learg - plain, hillside, Irish learg, Early Irish lerg, a plain; cf. 
       Latin largus, English large.
   ionad - a place, Irish ionad, ionnad; the Early Irish has inad only, 
       pointing to modern ionadh:

I also suggest a search on "place".

I hope these help.  They're cited with Old, Early or Middle Irish spellings,
so you won't fall into the trap of using modern words and finding out later 
they're not all that good.
I love the idea of "a place of thistles" as a branch name.  It's so...real.

- Teceangl
-- 
  "You say your fesse is gules? There are creams for that, you know..."
					     - Astrid Sigurdsdottir
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