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Keith's very learned pedantry doesn't get us much further. The sense 'putrid' may well be implied in 'stagnant'. -stall in combination with mere- is curious however. I seem to recollect that Karl Inge Sandred once wrote about worm-stall 'manger, cattle stll', but I don't have the reference. I'm sure Keith does, so he might follow it up.
Captain Jack
Von: Keith Briggs <[log in to unmask]>
Betreff: [EPNL] mere-stall
Datum: Wed, 20 Jun 2012 10:44:35 +0200
I refer to PN Sa6:29, whereat mere-stall is said to mean 'putrid pond'. I wondered about the ‘putrid’, so I checked the reference given to PN Sa4:169. At that place a further reference is made to PN Ch5:ii (more precisely PN Ch5 (section 1:ii) p.281), in which seven Cheshire examples of mere-stall are said to mean 'a (stagnant) pool; a pond'. Nothing about 'putrid' is mentioned, and the compound is derived from mere1 'a pool'. A further reference is made by Dodgson to PN Ch3 158-9, 280. At 158-9 mere-stall is now derived from mere2 'a mare'! At 280-1 a compound le Horemerestall 1353 'muddy pool' is given, which looks like a possible source of Gelling's 'putrid', even though her Shropshire example does not have the hore- prefix. All rather confused! B-T Supp has one non-place-name instance.
Keith