Danube once appears as the mother of Vrtra, "a dragon blocking the course of the rivers." The Finnish word for Danube is Tonava, which is most likely derived from the word for the river in Swedish and German, "Donau". Its Sámi name "Deatnu" means "Great River". It is possible that "dānu" in Scythian as in Avestan was a generic word for "river": "Dnieper" and "Dniestr", from "Danapris" and "Danastius", are presumed to continue Scythian "*dānu apara" "far river" and "*dānu nazdya-" "near river", respectively. The river was known to the ancient Greeks as the "Istros" (Ἴστρος) a borrowing from a Daco-Thracian
The Blue Danube piece was prominently used in Stanley Kubrick's 1968 film "". After a leap from humanity's prehistoric past to its spacefaring future, the first two-thirds of "The Blue Danube" are heard as a space plane approaches and docks with a space station; it concludes while another spacecraft travels from the station to the Moon. The piece is then reprised over the film's closing credits. In a Monty Python's Flying Circus skit, a shortened version is played by an orchestra, and each member explodes after each refrain. Sources The Blue Danube "The Blue Danube" is the common English title of "", Op.