Fave
The Fave is a river in France in the eastern region of Lorraine. It flows in the Vosges département. It is a tributary of the Meurthe, thus a sub-tributary of the Moselle and of the Rhine. It is long.
Geography
The Fave rises at Lubine at the foot of Climont in the Vosges massif, and flows into the Meurthe at Sainte-Marguerite at the end of its course. It flows through the grassland of the communes of Colroy, Provenchères-sur-Fave, Le Beulay, Frapelle and Neuvillers, passing by the hamlet of Vanifosse in the Pair-et-Grandrupt commune before Remomeix. Its principal tributaries are the "Sainte-Catherine" stream which comes out of La Grande-Fosse, the "Bleu" which flows from Lusse and the "Morte" which flows from Ban-de-Laveline, this latter augmented by the waters of the "Blanc Rû".The river's name is found in the title of two groupings of communes, the Communauté de communes de la Fave and the Communauté de communes de la Fave et de la Meurthe.
History and toponymy
The river shares its name with the village of Fave, which spread over the middle of the valley well before the 12th century. Having become a hamlet after the 16th century, it was left only a ruin after the Thirty Years War.According to old mountain-dwellers, the source of the Fave was worshipped at Fouillepré upstream of Lubine. According to this cultural model, all the modest tributaries upstream of Lubine, which come from Climont, les Osières, la Jambe de fer and other slopes or small valleys, were referred to as "petites Faves". Their confluence created the Fave. A probable etymology of the word Fave is from the Old French meaning water which digs or searches. This bears resemblance to the Gaulish "murta" meaning to dig, gully or laugh, which gave rise to the Meurthe river, to the Morte, and to the Mortagne, which flows into the Meurthe further downstream.
Downstream of Colroy the river has been intensively built on. A part of its waters were diverted with barrages to feed hydraulic installations or mères-royes, a local name for the main fittings used to irrigate humid grassland. More tenuous constructions aided log floating.