OT...Norway, Sarpsborgers, etc.

Library question concerning Norway...perhaps.
An Island named Waa...is there one, or anything that could be made into Waa with a minor mistake?? Perhaps a pre-modern name?? Something with only one vowel and a mark making that sound??
I have pored over new and ancient gazetters and encyclopedias, scanned the coast end to end, cranked through pages of nonsense online; Nothing has appeared, but it is obvious that Norway has thousands of tiny islands and rocks surrounding the hundreds of islands that have names in our biggest atlas, and plenty of lakes with plenty of islands there...
I may be chasing a complete mistake of some sort, or a rock the size of my desk, but thought I would try you natives...Thanks, Bruce


Hmmm...maybe I could just write a good little encyclopedia article myself...
"Waa...formerly Waaa...island off the coast of Norway near Oyenkilen...in early Medieval times, Norwegians returning from holiday trips stopped here to divide up captured women and loot and to sharpen the horns on their helmets...now, it is a traditional stop for those returning from trips to Hershey and Ebay in America to divide impossibly rare speed equipment looted from midwestern farmers...

 

The "Waa" is looking less and less Norwegian to me...Sami/Lapp, archaic, utterly wrong?

 

PM Fenderless. He lives in Oslo and helped me with the location of my wife's ancestral family name/location.

 

Well, the designation for Wales, Alaska's airport is WAA.

And it's just a hop, skip and a jump from Norway, across the polar icecap and Arctic Ocean.

'Kay, never mind.

 

well, my ornery old norwegian full blooded, relative never wants to completley answer my questions, over the 40 years i been asking,he says go the hell over there and ask,,,,a waa is a bay or pier or place to come home, something along that line, an ilsand could be a waa or a bay, more likely, glad i dont know if that is correct or not, now i know why i am like i am i do nt know or dont care i am half swede half norwegian



alot of diferent dialects ,kind of regionalisms i think he menas if you are from the area you know what Waa to go to or meet at,

the internet might just not have all the answers yet

 

Not shure what your searching
but close to Oyenkilen there is a place named Hvaler

could that be something ?

 

You might be looking for "vå" , which "waa" is pronounced in norwegian.
Or maybe even "våg", if its an island youre looking for.

Several to choose from,but it seems like none of them are an actual island from what i could see.

Mapsearch for "vå",
http://kart.gulesider.no/kart/address.c?mapItems=&q=V%E5&x=24&y=13

And for "våg"
http://kart.gulesider.no/kart/address.c?mapItems=&q=V%E5g&x=24&y=9

The "Velg" button on the right side,brings up the map.

Z.

 

Thanks! Several good leads and clarifications for me here..a new day, the hunt continues. Bruce

 

Maby if you tell us more about the place we can find out ....

 

Right now, all I have is the basic question, from the Library Director...I've queried him for some context, source of what he has, etc., but so far no more clues...he's not at work, so have to await an Email. One of the letters above suggests that this might be a generic word and not actually a name, and of course it is obvious from the more detailed maps I can find that Norway has a virtually infinite supply of coastal and lake islands. Will report as I get more information.
I'm an academic reference librarian, and so hunt for odd information all the time--I never know whether the next question will take 30 seconds at the reference shelves or 5 years collaboration with a crazed scholar.

 

Hi Bruce

Will look into the matter for ya in a couple of days. Pics and all coming this way.
A group of island rigt off the shore where I live is named Hvaler. Oyenkilen is a place close to this group.

Stay put and info will appear.


Paul

 

Most likely I will be out with my boat this weekend. We are 3 families roaming the shore togehther in the summer.
Will use some time looking at the sea map then and try to find what you are looking for. My brother who is one of the other captains, is more schooled than me in this area. Let's see what showes up.

This part of Norway where we live is one of the first places in Norway where people settled down once the glacier melted. All of Scandinavia where covered in Ice a loooooong time ago.

In radius of 2 - 3 kilometers from where I live you can see tracks of all the major periods, like the stone age, bronze age, vikings, medieval period etc.

One large Viking grave around here contained a quite well preserved viking ship. Discovered some decades ago.

There are stone carvings to be seen "everywhere".

Put up some pics to give you a clue of how the scenery of scerries looks like.

Paul