Reach for the stars…

*

“‘Black’ is an abundant place-name element

and occurs both in the ‘high places’ and at all track points.

The New English Dictionary describes it as, ‘a word of complicated history.’

It seems to derive from ‘blake’ and ‘blac’

which in Anglo-Saxon times meant, ‘shining, pale, white’,

and whose root gives us both ‘bleach’ and ‘bleak’.

The Slavonic languages have ‘blag’ as an element

meaning, ‘blessed’ or ‘light-given’.

Most ‘Black’ places, then, are not so named for being colourless

but because they are sites of especial sacred reverence.”

Count Jack Black