Land of Nod

[koster]

In East Yorkshire there's a place called The Land of Nod. It's not much more than a farm or two.

I just wondered how it got this name.

[jno]

In the Bible, the land of Nod was where Cain was banished to after murdering his brother Abel; so the people who named the place may have been religious, and felt this was a similarly remote place. (In fact it may be a mistranslation for becoming a nomad; see here.) It's also used jokily to refer to sleep (as in 'nodding off').