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 of the Danube." Source of the Danube The Danube is conventionally taken to be formed by the confluence of the two streams Brigach and Breg just east of Donaueschingen. Known as the source of the Danube ("Donauquelle") the source of the "Donaubach" in Donaueschingen itself. Hydrologically, the source of the Danube is the source of the Breg as the larger of the two formative streams, which rises near Furtwangen. There was an active rivalry between the municipalities of Furtwangen and Donaueschingen for the claim of being home to the "official" source of the Danube since the 1950s, sometimes with the