Ковиље, кобиле, Арханђео Михаило и Свети Никола
Feather grass , mares , Archangel Michael and Saint Nicholas

Summary/Abstract: Kovilj, the name of a village and of a neighbouring monastery in southernBačka apparently derives, in its present form, from the Common Slavic phytonym*kovyl‑ designating the Europaean feather grass (Stipa pennata), but the historicalevidence in Hungarian, Turkish and Serbian sources points clearly to a derivationfrom the zoonym *kobyla, Serbian kobila, ‘mare’. Curiously enough, in the regionof Stari Vlah (western Serbia), another monastery called Kovilje is situated atthe foothills of a mountain named Kobilje. An additional parallelism betweentwo monasteries consists in both of them being dedicated to the same saint,Archangel Michael, whose name, in the archaic phonetic shape *Mьkovilъ, alsomight be eponymous of Kovilj(e). Additionally it is suggested that the dedicationof a younger church in Kovilje to Saint Nicholas possibly reflects the minglingtogether of the two hagionyms, that took place in Slavic mouth at an early date(OSerb., Russ. Mikula ʻNicholasʼ, etc.).

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