Lobios

Camino de la Geira y los Arrieiros · Camino de San Rosendo y la Reina Santa · Camino Miñoto Ribeiro

Ourense · OrenseGalicia

Here Camino de la Geira y los Arrieiros, Camino de San Rosendo y la Reina Santa and Camino Miñoto Ribeiro converge. It is one of the points where the pilgrim shares the way with those arriving by another route.

It is not 'wolf'. Lobios is the plural of lobio —⁠the trellis, the vine raised over the path⁠—⁠, from the Germanic *laubja 'shelter, gallery'. Friar Sarmiento already clarified it in 1754.

Almost everyone hears 'wolf' in Lobios, and almost everyone is wrong. The name is the plural of lobio, a living Galician word for the trellis: the vine raised on stakes that covers paths and yards in the Ribeiro and the Baixa Limia. It comes from the Germanic *laubja —⁠'shelter, leafy gallery', kin to English lobby and German Laube⁠—⁠, a legacy of the Suevi who settled in Galicia. Friar Sarmiento already explained it in 1754, and the medieval forms confirm it: Louios, Lovios, documented at Celanova around 1032, with no trace of a wolf anywhere. It is a name of agriculture, not of the beast: it says there were trellised vines here long before there were pilgrims.

Evolution of the name

  1. *laubja Germanic 'shelter, trellis'
  2. Louios / Lovios Galician attested 1032, Celanova
  3. Lobios Galician modern

Reflections, to the letter

You will want to see a wolf in the name, and there is none. Lobios is the plural of lobio, the Galician trellis: the high vine that covers paths and yards, so typical of the Ribeiro. The word comes from the Germanic *laubja, 'leafy shelter', cousin of the English lobby, and the Suevi brought it. Friar Sarmiento clarified it back in 1754, and the documents of the year 1032 write Louios, not 'wolves'. If you cross the village under a vine, you are standing beneath the toponym itself.

Languages of origin

Themes

Origin status

confirmed

Sources

  • Sarmiento, Fr. M. — notas toponímicas (1754), citadas en la bibliografía onomástica gallega
  • Nomenclátor de Galicia (Xunta de Galicia)

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Camino de la Geira y los Arrieiros

  1. Santiago de Compostela
  2. Codeseda
  3. Beariz
  4. Pazos de Arenteiro
  5. Ribadavia
  6. Cortegada
  7. Lobios
  8. Baños de Riocaldo
  9. Portela do Homem
  10. Braga