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
Source of the Danube what is the spring of the Danube also interested the oceanographer Jacques Cousteau, who in 1987 filmed a documentary about the Danube around St. Martin's Church. For centuries, the two cities Furtwangen and Donaueschingen competed for an official status which declares their own source as the official source of the Danube. The city Furtwangen is located along the upper river Breg, while the city Donaueschingen is located at the symbolic source of the Danube. At times, the issue even involves the government of Baden-Württemberg. After the city council Donaueschingen intervened in 1981, for example, the Ministry of the Interior in