Sigelwara Land

Sigelwara Land is an essay written in two parts by the English writer JRR Tolkien . The first part was published in December 1932; the second part in June 1934. The manuscripts and proofs for the article are in the Bodleian Library at Oxford University .

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In the essay, JRR Tolkien deals with the question of why the Anglo-Saxons had their own name for the Ethiopians with Sigelwara and what the name meant.

In the first part, Tolkien lists all the places where the Old English term Sigelwaran and its more common form Sigelhearwan occur.

Tolkien believes that the name Sigelhearwan existed before the Anglo-Saxons had heard of Ethiopians, and that part of the "lost native mythology [...] or semi-mythical geography " is preserved in it. Accordingly, it is very likely that the components of the word are old and their meanings are unclear. He examines their shapes and comes to the conclusion that Sigelwara was probably a rather late distortion, shaped by people who no longer understood the original name. They apparently took Sigel for a geographical designation and replaced the unknown hearwa with wara (German resident ).

In the second part of the essay, Tolkien explains the meaning of the two parts of the word:

Sigel is used several times to mean sun , but also precious stone . In what sense it was used here, he cannot finally clarify either. It is generally believed to mean sun , which Tolkien also thinks is likely.

The meaning of hearwa remains unclear. Tolkien discusses three possibilities in more detail:

• It is derived from an Indo-European root * qer (s) - (dt. Black ). A Sigelhearwa would then be someone whom the sun has made black.
• It comes from the Germanic color adjective * haswo- with a similar meaning.
• It is related to Gothic haúri (German coal ) and Old Norse hyr-r (German fire ).

Tolkien describes the last case as "etymologically perhaps the most attractive" and thinks that it brings the sons of Múspell to mind rather than the children of Ham as the ancestors of the Silhearwan : "with red-hot eyes that emitted sparks, with faces black as soot" .

Tolkien concludes by stating that investigations of this kind are inevitably fruitless, but not pointless: they afford a glimpse into the background of English and Nordic traditions and the imagination of a past that had already faded by the time the first written records emerged .

literature

• JRR Tolkien: Sigelwara Land . In: Medium Ævum . tape 1 , no. 3 , December 1932, p. 183-196 , doi : 10.2307 / 43625831 , JSTOR : 43625831 (English).
• JRR Tolkien: Sigelwara Land (Continued) . In: Medium Ævum . tape 3 , no. 2 , 1934, p. 95–111 , doi : 10.2307 / 43625895 , JSTOR : 43625895 (English).

References and comments

1. ↑ Múspell is a fire giant in Norse mythology, whose sons fight against the gods among the Ragnarök and destroy the world in a mighty fire. According to the Bible (1. Mos. 5,32) Ham is the son of Noah and ancestor of the Hamites , the peoples of North Africa and South Arabia (1. Mos. 10, 6-20).