Midgard
Encyclopedia
Midgard (an Anglicised form of Old Norse Miðgarðr) is one of the Nine Worlds and is an old Germanic
Germanic languages
The Germanic languages constitute a sub-branch of the Indo-European language family. The common ancestor of all of the languages in this branch is called Proto-Germanic , which was spoken in approximately the mid-1st millennium BC in Iron Age northern Europe...
name for our world
World
World is a common name for the whole of human civilization, specifically human experience, history, or the human condition in general, worldwide, i.e. anywhere on Earth....
and is the home of Humans, with the literal meaning "middle enclosure".
Etymology
This name is attested in many ancient Germanic languages. It occurs in Old Norse literature as . In Old High GermanOld High German
The term Old High German refers to the earliest stage of the German language and it conventionally covers the period from around 500 to 1050. Coherent written texts do not appear until the second half of the 8th century, and some treat the period before 750 as 'prehistoric' and date the start of...
poem Muspilli
Muspilli
Muspilli is one of but two surviving pieces of Old High German epic poetry , dating to around 870. One large fragment of the text has survived in the margins and empty pages of a codex marked as the possession of Louis the German and now in the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek . The beginning and end of...
it appears as . The Gothic
Gothic language
Gothic is an extinct Germanic language that was spoken by the Goths. It is known primarily from the Codex Argenteus, a 6th-century copy of a 4th-century Bible translation, and is the only East Germanic language with a sizable Text corpus...
form is attested in Luke's Gospel as a translation of the Greek word . The word is present in Old English epic and poetry as ; later transformed to or ("Middle-earth") in Middle English
Middle English
Middle English is the stage in the history of the English language during the High and Late Middle Ages, or roughly during the four centuries between the late 11th and the late 15th century....
literature.
All these forms are from a conjectural Proto-Germanic *medja-gardaz (*meddila-, *medjan-). Even if the two terms derive from Indo-European roots
Proto-Indo-European language
The Proto-Indo-European language is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European languages, spoken by the Proto-Indo-Europeans...
*medhyo ("middle") and *ghartos ("enclosure"), the construct exists only in Germanic. It's possible to speculate about the ancientness of this cosmological
Cosmology
Cosmology is the discipline that deals with the nature of the Universe as a whole. Cosmologists seek to understand the origin, evolution, structure, and ultimate fate of the Universe at large, as well as the natural laws that keep it in order...
concept, but it may be inappropriate to trace back the Germanic terminology in common Indo-European.
The Danish
Danish language
Danish is a North Germanic language spoken by around six million people, principally in the country of Denmark. It is also spoken by 50,000 Germans of Danish ethnicity in the northern parts of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, where it holds the status of minority language...
and Swedish
Swedish language
Swedish is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along its coast and on the Åland islands. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish...
form or , the Norwegian
Norwegian language
Norwegian is a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Norway, where it is the official language. Together with Swedish and Danish, Norwegian forms a continuum of more or less mutually intelligible local and regional variants .These Scandinavian languages together with the Faroese language...
or , as well as the Icelandic
Icelandic language
Icelandic is a North Germanic language, the main language of Iceland. Its closest relative is Faroese.Icelandic is an Indo-European language belonging to the North Germanic or Nordic branch of the Germanic languages. Historically, it was the westernmost of the Indo-European languages prior to the...
form , all derive from the Old Norse term.
Old Norse
Midgard is a realm in Norse mythologyNorse mythology
Norse mythology, a subset of Germanic mythology, is the overall term for the myths, legends and beliefs about supernatural beings of Norse pagans. It flourished prior to the Christianization of Scandinavia, during the Early Middle Ages, and passed into Nordic folklore, with some aspects surviving...
. Pictured as placed somewhere in the middle of Yggdrasil
Yggdrasil
In Norse mythology, Yggdrasil is an immense tree that is central in Norse cosmology. It was said to be the world tree around which the nine worlds existed...
, Midgard is surrounded by a world of water, or ocean, that is impassable. The ocean is inhabited by the great sea serpent Jörmungandr
Jörmungandr
In Norse mythology, Jörmungandr , mostly known as Jormungand, orJörmungand , or Midgard Serpent , or World Serpent, is a sea serpent, and the middle child of the giantess Angrboða and the god Loki...
(Miðgarðsormr), who is
so huge that he encircles the world entirely, grasping his own tail. The concept is similar to that of the Ouroboros
Ouroboros
The Ouroboros is an ancient symbol depicting a serpent or dragon eating its own tail. The name originates from within Greek language; οὐρά meaning "tail" and βόρος meaning "eating", thus "he who eats the tail"....
.
In Norse mythology, Miðgarðr became applied to the wall around the world that the gods constructed from the eyebrows of the giant Ymir
Ymir
In Norse mythology, Ymir, also called Aurgelmir among the giants themselves, was the founder of the race of frost giants and was later killed by the Borrs.-Etymology:...
as a defence against the Jotuns who lived in Jotunheim, west of Mannheim, "the home of men," a word used to refer to the entire world.
The realm was said to have been formed from the flesh and blood of Ymir, his flesh constituting the land and his blood the oceans, and was connected to Asgard by the Bifröst
Bifröst
In Norse mythology, Bifrost or Bilröst is a burning rainbow bridge that reaches between Midgard and Asgard, the realm of the gods...
, guarded by Heimdallr.
Ragnarök
In Norse mythology, Ragnarök is a series of future events, including a great battle foretold to ultimately result in the death of a number of major figures , the occurrence of various natural disasters, and the subsequent submersion of the world in water...
, the battle at the end of the world. Jörmungandr will arise from the ocean, poisoning the land and sea with his venom and causing the sea to rear up and lash against the land. The final battle will take place on the plain of Vígríðr
Vígríðr
In Norse mythology, Vígríðr or Óskópnir, is a large field foretold to host a battle between the forces of the gods and the forces of Surtr as part of the events of Ragnarök. The field is attested in the Poetic Edda, compiled in the 13th century from earlier traditional material, and in the Prose...
, following which Midgard and almost all life on it will be destroyed, with the earth sinking into the sea, only to rise again, fertile and green.
Although most surviving instances of the word refer to spiritual matters, it was also used in more mundane situations, as in the Viking Age
Viking Age
Viking Age is the term for the period in European history, especially Northern European and Scandinavian history, spanning the late 8th to 11th centuries. Scandinavian Vikings explored Europe by its oceans and rivers through trade and warfare. The Vikings also reached Iceland, Greenland,...
runestone poem from the inscription Sö 56
Fyrby Runestone
thumb|300px|right|Fyrby Runestone from Södermanland, Sweden.The Fyrby Runestone, which is designated as Sö 56 in the Rundata catalog, is a Viking Age memorial runestone located in Fyrby, which is about 15 kilometers south of Flen, Södermanland, Sweden....
from Fyrby:
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Old and Middle English
The name middangeard occurs half a dozen times in the Old EnglishOld English language
Old English or Anglo-Saxon is an early form of the English language that was spoken and written by the Anglo-Saxons and their descendants in parts of what are now England and southeastern Scotland between at least the mid-5th century and the mid-12th century...
epic poem Beowulf
Beowulf
Beowulf , but modern scholars agree in naming it after the hero whose life is its subject." of an Old English heroic epic poem consisting of 3182 alliterative long lines, set in Scandinavia, commonly cited as one of the most important works of Anglo-Saxon literature.It survives in a single...
, and is the same word as Midgard in Old Norse
Old Norse
Old Norse is a North Germanic language that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and inhabitants of their overseas settlements during the Viking Age, until about 1300....
. The term is equivalent in meaning to the Greek term Oikoumene
Oikoumene
Ecumene is a term originally used in the Greco-Roman world to refer to the inhabited universe . The term derives from the Greek , short for "inhabited world"...
, as referring to the known and inhabited world.
The concept of Midgard occurs many times in Middle English
Middle English
Middle English is the stage in the history of the English language during the High and Late Middle Ages, or roughly during the four centuries between the late 11th and the late 15th century....
. The association with earth (OE eorðe) in Middle English middellærd, middelerde is by popular etymology; the continuation of geard "enclosure" is yard
Yard (land)
A yard is an enclosed area of land, usually tied to a building. The word comes from the same linguistic root as the word garden and has many of the same meanings....
. An early example of this transformation is from the Ormulum
Ormulum
The Ormulum or Orrmulum is a twelfth-century work of biblical exegesis, written by a monk named Orm and consisting of just under 19,000 lines of early Middle English verse...
:
-
- þatt ure Drihhtin wollde / ben borenn i þiss middellærd
-
- that our Lord wanted / be born in this middle-earth.
The usage of "Middle-earth
Middle-earth
Middle-earth is the fictional setting of the majority of author J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy writings. The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings take place entirely in Middle-earth, as does much of The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales....
" as a name for a setting was popularized by Old English scholar J. R. R. Tolkien
J. R. R. Tolkien
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, CBE was an English writer, poet, philologist, and university professor, best known as the author of the classic high fantasy works The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion.Tolkien was Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Pembroke College,...
in his The Lord of the Rings
The Lord of the Rings
The Lord of the Rings is a high fantasy epic written by English philologist and University of Oxford professor J. R. R. Tolkien. The story began as a sequel to Tolkien's earlier, less complex children's fantasy novel The Hobbit , but eventually developed into a much larger work. It was written in...
and other fantasy works; he was originally inspired by the references to middangeard and Éarendel in the Old English poem Crist
Crist
Christ, in Old English Crist, is the title given to a triad of Old English religious poems in the Exeter Book comprising a total of 1664 lines and dealing with Christ's Advent, Ascension and Last Judgment. It was originally thought to be one piece completed by a single author, but the poem is now...
.
Old High German
Mittilagart is mentioned in the 9th century Old High GermanOld High German
The term Old High German refers to the earliest stage of the German language and it conventionally covers the period from around 500 to 1050. Coherent written texts do not appear until the second half of the 8th century, and some treat the period before 750 as 'prehistoric' and date the start of...
Muspilli
Muspilli
Muspilli is one of but two surviving pieces of Old High German epic poetry , dating to around 870. One large fragment of the text has survived in the margins and empty pages of a codex marked as the possession of Louis the German and now in the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek . The beginning and end of...
(v. 54) meaning "the world" as opposed to the sea and the heavens:
-
- muor varsuuilhit sih, suilizot lougiu der himil,
- mano uallit, prinnit mittilagart
-
- Sea is swallowed, flaming burn the heavens,
- Moon falls, Midgard burns