Midgard

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Midgard is a Germanic name for the world or the earth. The word is in this or a similar meaning as Gothic midjungards , Old Norse miðgarðr , Old English middangeard , Old Saxon middilgard and Old High German mittil (a) gart and was used in both sacred and profane language. Midgard, literally "Mittelhof" or "Mittelgarten", means precisely where people live in the middle of the world. The gods ( Asen ) live in Asgard .

In contrast to the vertical world view of the world tree Yggdrasil , in the Nordic world of ideas Miðgarðr (west) and Útgarðr (east) describe a horizontal, circular worldview as two related poles. This corresponds to the settlement structure of the north up to the time of the industrial revolution , in which the farmstead was the center of the world.

The basic word garðr , which mainly stood for "farm" in medieval Scandinavia , originally meant an enclosure, a border wall or fence, which divides the world into two opposing areas: an inside and an outside. The enclosed interior is the area of ​​human life in which culture is possible under the protection of the gods, while the demons and giants live outside.

In Eddic literature , Miðgarðr is not only the world of men, but also that of the gods . Miðgarðr is created by the gods who build their castle Ásgarðr in it. Then they assign Miðgarðr to the first people Askr and Embla as their place of residence. Sometimes Miðgarðr is also used to denote the wall or fence that protects the human world from the giants.

Reception in modern times

JRR Tolkien called in his work The Lord of the Rings , which is strongly influenced by Germanic mythology and the Beowulf , the world comparable to Midgard as Middle-earth . The German author Wolfgang Hohlbein called one of his novels in which he freely used elements of Nordic mythology, Midgard .

Joel Primack and Nancy Ellen use midgard in their contemporary cosmology The View from the Center of the Universe as a term to illustrate the position of man in the universe. The human being as a mediator between the macro and microcosm has the task of developing this connection with his consciousness .

Willibald Hentschel gave his human breeding plans the name Mittgart . Around Hentschel as the founder, there was a "Mittgart-Bund" and "Mittgart settlements" for human breeding.

Another völkischer publishing house called itself Mittgart-Verlag in the Weimar Republic , with its seat in Haan- Ellscheid , founder Guntram Erich Pohl. Here came a new life. Monthly for Nordic-German beings.

Max Robert Gerstenhauer wrote Mittgart's Decay and Revival. 1st volume. Armanen-Verlag , 1937.

The oldest German role-playing game is called Midgard . The word is also widely used to denote the virtual game world of computer games, including in Dark Age of Camelot , Rune , Age of Mythology , Ragnarok Online .

literature

In the order of the year of publication.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Rudolf Simek: Lexicon of Germanic Mythology (= Kröner's pocket edition. Volume 368). 3rd, completely revised edition. Kröner, Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 3-520-36803-X , p. 278.
  2. See Klaus Böldl: Miðgarðr and Útgarðr. In: RGA XX. S. 11, which the profane use of the word in a Kenning points
  3. ^ Gerhard Köbler: Old Norse Dictionary. 2nd Edition. 2003, p. 300. - Gerhard Köbler: Old English dictionary. 2nd Edition. 2003, p. 157.
  4. Cf. Rudolf Simek: Lexicon of Germanic Mythology (= Kröner's pocket edition. Volume 368). 3rd, completely revised edition. Kröner, Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 3-520-36803-X , p. 278: Residence in the middle - cf. also Jan de Vries: Old Germanic Religious History. 2nd edition, 1957, § 579: "For people, their place of residence always means the 'Middle Kingdom'."
  5. ^ Klaus Böldl: Miðgarðr and Útgarðr. In: RGA XX. P. 10 f. - Compare also Jan de Vries: Old Germanic Religious History. 2nd edition, 1957, § 579
  6. ^ Klaus Böldl: Miðgarðr and Útgarðr. In: RGA XX. P. 10
  7. ^ Klaus Böldl: Miðgarðr and Útgarðr. In: RGA XX. P. 10 - Jan de Vries: Old Germanic history of religion. 2nd edition, 1957, § 579
  8. Jan de Vries: Old Germanic history of religion. 2nd edition, 1957, § 579
  9. ^ Klaus Böldl: Miðgarðr and Útgarðr. In: RGA XX. P. 11 - Compare also Rudolf Simek: Lexicon of Germanic Mythology (= Kröner's pocket edition. Volume 368). 3rd, completely revised edition. Kröner, Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 3-520-36803-X , p. 279.
  10. Mittgart. A way to renew the Germanic race. 6th edition. Matthes-Verlag, Leipzig 1916. - Cf. Uwe Puschner : Mittgart - a völkische utopia . In: utopias, visions of the future, thought experiments. Literary concepts from another world in western thought from antiquity to the present . Edited by Klaus Geus . Peter Lang, Frankfurt, pp. 153–181 (= civilization and history 9)
  11. Publications z. B: From the ascending life. Racial hygiene goals. Ed. Mittgart-Bund, by Hentschel; see. Hentschel: Varuna. The law of ascending and descending life in history. 2nd Edition. (3rd and 4th thousand) Verlag Theodor Fritsch , Leipzig 1907; On the federal government cf. also Philipp Stauff : The German military book. Ziemssen publishing house, Wittenberg, Halle district 1912
  12. according to the German National Library only in 1 year, 1930
  13. Volume 2: Eternal Germany. Upper title of both volumes: Basics of a German political and folklore. See dsb .: Mittgart, the home of the Germanic peoples, in Deutschbund sheets. Confidential communications for our members . Born 1930/1931, not paged