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
Danube Hills even exclusively restricted to this area which covered 376 km², which only covered the higher parts of the Vorderer Forest. It became major unit 405 in the natural region major unit group, the Upper Palatine-Bavarian Forest (40). English sources variously use the names Vorderer Forest, Danube Hills, Vorderer Wald, or Anterior Bavarian Forest. Regardless of this, the part designated as the "Falkensteiner Vorwald" in regional studies is also called the "Vorderer Bayerischer Wald" in German sources used for tourism purposes. However, the following description is based on the regional structure. The natural region of the Danube Hills is only 8