Speteby i Lerbo

Abstract

Speteby is a large village in the parish of Lerbo, Södermanland. It is part of a Bronze and Iron Age settlement. Older texts refer to the village as spitaby 1366, spitaby 1367 and spetaby 1453. The author is inclined to link the first element of Speteby with words such as OSw. spit n., f. for ‘pointed staff; stick; spit’ and the Modern Swedish spita f. ‘pole for hanging cereal crop to dry’. He entertains the idea that Speteby before the final element -by ‘farm; village’ contains an older name for nearby Lake Spetebysjön from OSw. *Spite m. ‘the pole-like lake’ or – rather – ‘the lake with the tip; the lake with the pointed bay,’ or similar.