Exploring the Mythical Attribution of Natural and Anthropogenic Landforms Through the Study of Place-Names: some Examples from Basque Toponymy in Navarre (Northern Iberia)

Place-names are a powerful tool to explore the relationship between local societies and landscape, including the creation of symbolic associations between conspicuous landforms and mythological storytelling. In this article, the study of Basque toponyms in Navarre is used to illustrate the persistence of mythical attributions of some natural and anthropogenic landforms, which are representative of the cosmology of popular classes. The geographical distribution, etymology, historic documentary mentions, and ethnographic witnesses of toponyms related to five distinct characters of Basque folklore is examined in detail, and displayed in a series of maps that provide an overview of this phaenomenon from the Middle Ages to the present. The results show that mythology-related toponymy is specially present in areas where Basque language is still spoken as the primary language, although relic toponyms can also be found in areas where it has been replaced by Spanish during the Early Modern period. More generally, this work provides new insights on the potential of onomastic sources for geomythological studies, and invites for interregional comparison.