Sauntering
Writing a blog called A Walker in the Suburbs means I’ve become familiar with all the lovely synonyms for walking: strolling, ambling, rambling, trekking, treading and wandering. By far one of my favorites is sauntering. But until yesterday I never thought much about its derivation. It was while looking up Thoreau on another quest that I found this, from his essay “Walking”:
I have met with but one or two persons in the course of my life who understood the art of Walking, that is, of taking walks — who had a genius, so to speak for sauntering, which word is beautifully derived ‘from idle people who roved about the country, in the Middle Ages, and asked charity, under pretense of going a la Sainte Terre,’ to the Holy Land, till the children exclaimed, ‘There goes a Sainte-Terrer,’ a Saunterer, a Holy-Lander.”
Although some would say the word “saunter” comes from “sans terre,” without land or home, Thoreau continues, this is fine, too, because being without a home can also mean being equally at home everywhere — and that in fact is the secret of successful sauntering.
I’m looking forward to more sauntering and more Thoreau.
