seter

noun

1. (alt-of, alternative)Alternative spelling of saeter.

   “Every summer, a long long time ago, they went up to the seter with the cows from Melbustad, in Hadeland.”

   “In Østlandet, on the contrary, the high mountain plateau, the gentle slopes and the grouping of seters in clusters permit the building of roads and therefore a modernized use of the seters.”

   “For example, twelfth- and thirteenth-century documents from the north of England mention place-names incorporating the term 'shield' or 'shiel', a 'shieling' being an area of summer pasture corresponding to the seters of Sweden.”

2. A natural terrace in solid rock, formed by waves, that marks the former position of a shoreline.

   “The lowest important terrace, known as Sherbrooke-street terrace, lies at a height of 36-6 meters in the Leda clay; the next, Waterwork terrace, at a height of 67 meters, is excavated in the lower Silurian limestone, and I am not sure whether it should not be regarded as a seter.”

   “As far as Suess could see from the existing maps and from the aneroid that he had wisely brought with him, the seters are also horizontal. Nowhere did Suess see any marine fossils on the seters, and neither had anybody else before him.”

3. A silk scarf or thin pice of cotton cloth used to consecrate a domestic animal to a deity in Mongolia.

   “Similar to the seter, it is forbidden to touch the tree, or to chop the tree down for firewood, or timber. It is clear that the sacred tree and the seter cow have powers, beyond that of an ordinary cow or tree, which assist in protecting the herding family and their herd of animals from harm.”

   “As I entered her house early on the afternoon before the ritual, Nadmid Udgan was busy making protective amulets (seter, lusyn örgöl) on her manual sewing machine.”

   “So our man [Tulga] made a great show of bringing his black stallion, tied the seter, and let the horse go free.”

   “In both traditions, Shamanism and Buddhism, a rite of entrusting and consecrating a domestic animal to a deity involves tying a seter around the neck of a sheep or goat or on the mane of a horse.”