Muspellsheim

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The spheres of the Nordic gods

Muspellsheim , also Muspell ( Old Norse Muspellr , Muspellzheimr "World of Muspell"), is a fiery area in the creation story of Nordic mythology that lies in the south and forms the opposite pole to the icy and dark Niflheim in the north.

In prehistoric times, the warmth of Muspellsheim melted the ice of Niflheim in Ginnungagap , from which the giant Ymir , the first being in the world, was formed. All celestial bodies, sun, moon and stars, arose from the flying sparks of Muspellsheim, which the gods attached to the sky.

Muspellsheim as area is only Snorri Sturluson in the Prose Edda handed. It is probably not a popular idea, but a creation of Snorri's own. The underlying continental Germanic term, which roughly means "end of the world (by fire)", was evidently reinterpreted in Nordic times and personified as the giant Muspell , whom Snorri equated with the fire giant Surtr and whose whereabouts he named after Muspell Muspellsheim.

Another reinterpretation in Snorri's cosmogony is the connotation of Muspell , in whose literal sense the ruin of fire resonates, but which in his case turns into something positive (a world of warmth and light), presumably according to a northern conception of the south is a world of salvation.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Snorri Sturluson: Prose-Edda, Gylfaginning . Chapter 4 f. (Citation of the Prose Edda after Arnulf Krause: The Edda of Snorri Sturluson. Philipp Reclam jun. Verlag, Stuttgart 1997, ISBN 978-3-15-000782-2 )
  2. ^ Snorri Sturluson: Prose-Edda, Gylfaginning. Chapters 8 and 11
  3. ^ Snorri Sturluson: Prose-Edda, Gylfaginning. Chapters 5, 8 and 11 as Muspellsheim and Chapter 4, maybe 51 as Muspell
  4. ^ Compare 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. 290 f.
  5. ↑ Compare Jan de Vries: Old Germanic Religious History. 2nd Edition. Verlag de Gruyter, Berlin - New York 1957, § 580