Why "middle" Earth?

[Beren3000]

I think the thread's topic is pretty obvious. Why is it called middle earth? I know that it is in the middle because it's between Westernesse and Easternesse (I don't know what Easternesse is, I only saw a drawing of it in a Tolkien Atlas) but what is the philosophical meaning behind this?

Personally, I think that it means that it's stranded in that grey area between good and evil which makes it the most interesting. I think Tolkien's point is that the most important events and those that really change the shape of the world happen in that grey area. I can't really explain it better than that...it's like saying that the world can't work with only good people in it and of course can't work with only bad people in it, so that the middle is the most realistic and interesting place to be in.

However, I think that this is all too vague. Can anybody better it?

[Beor]

I think it has something to do with Norse mythology, I recall hearing the term Middle Earth somewhere in there before. I think he got it from there, though the meaning may be different. I would say it is middle earth because prior to all roads being bent it was right in the middle, the central, and from what I gather the biggest chunck of land between the edges of the world or whatever. There was a diagram in BoLT 1, but I dont remember the names on the damn thing.

[Beren3000]

Thanks for the insight, Beor (so much for finding a philosophical meaning :mad: !) you party pooper!;)

[Rían]

*tries hard to think of a philosophical meaning*

OK, how's this: Middle is a reference to the stomach area, (like Fat Middle) and you know how hobbits were "inclined to be fat", as it says in the prologue of LOTR, and they like their 6 meals a day, when they can get them, and they're very "earthy", and so Middle Earth was actually a reference to the hobbits, who were Tolkien's favorite characters. Or another reference to hobbits would be that they're kinda the middle people of earth - they were kinda in the middle between elves (who were inclined to be ethereal with their heads up in the clouds) and the dwarves (who were diggers under the earth) ...

[Beren3000]

*looks doubtfully at the screen* Could be!:confused:

[Sister Golden Hair]

I read sometime ago something that Michael Martinez had said about this. Middle-earth was the earth, including Valinor, and was something like the center point of Ea between the Void and the Timeless Halls.

Can't remember exactly how he put it.:o

[Beor]

Originally posted by RÃ*an
*tries hard to think of a philosophical meaning*

OK, how's this: Middle is a reference to the stomach area, (like Fat Middle) and you know how hobbits were "inclined to be fat", as it says in the prologue of LOTR, and they like their 6 meals a day, when they can get them, and they're very "earthy", and so Middle Earth was actually a reference to the hobbits, who were Tolkien's favorite characters. Or another reference to hobbits would be that they're kinda the middle people of earth - they were kinda in the middle between elves (who were inclined to be ethereal with their heads up in the clouds) and the dwarves (who were diggers under the earth) ...

interesting...interesting, yes, I do believe you are right, Rian, and what incredible insight! ;):p

(PS: Dont forget to put in a random beer refrence ;))

[Jonathan]

Originally posted by Beor
I think it has something to do with Norse mythology, I recall hearing the term Middle Earth somewhere in there before. Yes, Midgård is what the world is called in Norse mythology - 'mid' and 'middle' meaning the same thing.

[Beor]

Thanks, Jonathan, also, in BOLT 1, I seem to recall that he had something of a rainbow bridge too, to get the valar to and from Valinor after its hiding, sort of like Bifrost (I hope I spelled it correctly). I could be dead wrong too, but I bet you a Miller Genuine Draft.

[Jonathan]

Yeah, the Elves had their 'Straight Road', a way to return to Valinor. They could travel through the air on some sort of invisible bridge - something similar to Bifrost in Norse mythology (yep, you spelt it correctly Beor :)).

[Beor]

So, do you think I should throw a party? And did you ever take that bet? Who owes who a Miller? ;)

[Rían]

I don't have a Miller, but I have a Dr. Pepper here .... *hands it to Beor in recognition of his great spelling abilities*

[Forkbeard]

"middle earth" is a term all Germanic languages have for "earth" . Its middle because its between heaven, or the gods, and hell, in CHristian terms, or is between Valhalla at the top of the world tree and the place where the giants are at the bottom of the world tree. While the Hebrew Bible doesn't have a term "middle earth", there too one has the sky, the heavens, the earth, and the fountains of the deep, so that the habitation of people, plants, and animals, is again between the heavens and the abyss.

BTW, Old English for "earth" is eard. Look familiar?

Forkbeard

[Beor]

Oh! Why thank you, Rian!! How generous! I do hope that wasnt your last Dr. Pepper! Thanks, though, and yes, I have been working on my spelling lately, yes, thank you, Rian!:D

And Forkbeard, are you saying that the last part of your name means "Earth", as in Fork-Earth? ;) (I got you, man, < = Joke ;))

[BeardofPants]

BeardofPants.... EardofPants.... EarthofPants.... Woohooo! :D

[Rían]

Originally posted by Beor
Oh! Why thank you, Rian!! How generous! I do hope that wasnt your last Dr. Pepper! Thanks, though, and yes, I have been working on my spelling lately, yes, thank you, Rian!:D You silly twit! *gives Beor an affectionate noogie*

[Coney II]

*loves Rians "philosophical meaning"* :D

Not a fully comprehensive explanation.....but there is a few clues to be found on this page :) (I hope anyway, I'm not a tolkien scholar by any stretch of the imagination, so I can't verify the page's accuracy).

http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Middle-earth

[Ñólendil]

"Middle-earth" is a term used by many different cultures throughout time, and each culture had a different reason for it. In Norse Mythology Midgard is one of the Nine Worlds, and is called so because it was envisioned as being between the northern ice and southern fires.

Tolkien's Middle-earth could be Middle-earth for a variety of reasons, and even within his own mythology the reasons may have changed according to the time period.

One reason might be that Imbar, the Earth, (which at one time = Middle-earth), was to be the dramatic (but not physical) center of Eä, the Universe. This explanation only works if you subscribe to the scientifcally compatible mythology of Tolkien's which he favored later in his life.

[Rosie Gamgee]

I was just reading the Letters of J.R.R. Tolkein, and in one of them (I forget which number it was, sorry), Tolkein said that the name 'middle-earth' was from an old English term for the world, and had to do with it being cold to the north and hot to the south, and that the world they lived in was in the middle, between the cold above and the fire below. I guess that was before they knew that if you go far enough, the south eventually turns cold again.

[Michael Martinez]

Tolkien first used the word "Middle-earth" during a transitional phase from the early Silmarillion. It occurred for the first time in a map associated with the Ambarkanta, which Tolkien wrote in the mid-1930s.

The Ambarkanta described the various phases of the physical world through its evolution (in the mythological sense). In a list of cosmological words accompanying Ambarkanta, there is an entry for ambar which reads:

ambar. Earth. ambar-endya or Middle Earth of which Endor is the midmost point.

The name is first used in the form "Earth Middle" on Map IV. This map depicts three continent-sized land masses on a flat-topped world. Endor is the middle continent.

This flat world model is often compared to the flat world model of Norse mythology, in which the lands of men are surrounded by a sea, and beyond that sea is another ring of lands, "worlds", inhabited by Elves, Dwarves, Giants, and Gods. There is another, outer sea beyond the outer lands.

The Yggdrasil Tree stands at the center of Midgaard and its roots reach down to the land of the dead. Its branches reach up to the stars of heaven. Bifrost, the rainbow bridge, crosses the inner sea from Midgaard to Asgaard.

Tolkien was undoubtedly influenced by the Norse sagas, which he and his fellow Coalbiters (including C.S. Lewis) at Oxford translated off the cuff for each other in readings at their meetings during the early 1930s.

After The Lord of the Rings was published, Tolkien described Middle-earth as "our world, round and inescapable" and as "the habitable lands". He also compared it to the Greek oikumene, the entire world of humanity (more-or-less).

There was no rainbrow bridge leading from Middle-earth to Valinor. However, in The Book of Lost Tales, Tolkien's mythology for England, "The Hiding of Valinor" says that Orome created Ilweren, a rainbow, from a golden strand of his wife Vana's hair, to provide the Valar with a swift means of passage back to the Great Lands (the world of Men and Elves) after they had made Valinor inaccessible.

The Straight Road, to which Tolkien referred in The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, was not a path by air but rather a path by sea. After the Downfall of Numenor and the Change of the World (from a "flat" world to a "round" world), specially hallowed Elvish ships would, instead of following the horizon of the round world, continue sailing straight west until they came to the (now hidden or removed) shores of Aman.

[Ragnarok]

Originally posted by Beren3000
I think the thread's topic is pretty obvious. Why is it called middle earth? I know that it is in the middle because it's between Westernesse and Easternesse (I don't know what Easternesse is, I only saw a drawing of it in a Tolkien Atlas) but what is the philosophical meaning behind this?

Personally, I think that it means that it's stranded in that grey area between good and evil which makes it the most interesting. I think Tolkien's point is that the most important events and those that really change the shape of the world happen in that grey area. I can't really explain it better than that...it's like saying that the world can't work with only good people in it and of course can't work with only bad people in it, so that the middle is the most realistic and interesting place to be in.

However, I think that this is all too vague. Can anybody better it?

I'm an avid reader of Norse Mythology, and Tolkien did borrow the word Middle Earth which is the land inbetween Asgard (World of the Aesir) and Niflheim (World of the Dead). Middle earth in norse mythology is often called Midgard. Asgard was the land of the Gods, Midgard was home of the giants, men, gnolls, dark elves, light elves and the dwarves, Niflheim was the underworld. If you ever do read some Norse mythology you will find many other similarities that Tolkien based his work.

[Beren3000]

Thanks a lot Ragnarock (btw, are you a FFVIII fan or is it just a coincidence?)! I like reading mythology, too; but what I read of Norse mythology is just a quick overview. I'm planning to read some celtic mythology this summer. Have you ever read it? Is it any good?

Here's a fun fact I heard once: Rome was built on seven levels (sound familiar?). Anyway, I drifted off topic :o

[Ragnarok]

Originally posted by Beren3000
Thanks a lot Ragnarock (btw, are you a FFVIII fan or is it just a coincidence?)! I like reading mythology, too; but what I read of Norse mythology is just a quick overview. I'm planning to read some celtic mythology this summer. Have you ever read it? Is it any good?

Here's a fun fact I heard once: Rome was built on seven levels (sound familiar?). Anyway, I drifted off topic :o

Funny you ask.. :D Actually Ragnarok is the day of doom and destruction in Norse mythology. I'm not real familar with Celtic mythology however that is on my reading list.

[Wayfarer]

Here's a fun fact I heard once: Rome was built on seven levels (sound familiar?). Anyway, I drifted off topic

Actually, Rome was built on seven hills. The geography where the city was built is made up of seven hills, which the city covers and surrounds.

Close, but not the same as seven levels. ;)

[Beren3000]

I stand corrected :)

[Forkbeard]

Originally posted by Ragnarok
I'm an avid reader of Norse Mythology, and Tolkien did borrow the word Middle Earth which is the land inbetween Asgard (World of the Aesir) and Niflheim (World of the Dead). Middle earth in norse mythology is often called Midgard. Asgard was the land of the Gods, Midgard was home of the giants, men, gnolls, dark elves, light elves and the dwarves, Niflheim was the underworld. If you ever do read some Norse mythology you will find many other similarities that Tolkien based his work.

Sorry, not as precise as that. In Letter 165 Tolkien states that the term is Middle English, taken from Old English. It is true, as the good professor knew and as I've said previously in this thread, that the name "middle earth" exists in all Germanic languages, languages with which Tolkien was intimately familiar. Thus, it isn't possible to say that Tolkien took the name specifically from Norse and Norse mythology. There are certainly things that can be put down to Norse language (Gandalf--wand elf can only be from Old Norse) or Norse mythology (I'll stick with names and point to Thorin), this particular term is not one of them.

FB

[Ragnarok]

Originally posted by Forkbeard
Sorry, not as precise as that. In Letter 165 Tolkien states that the term is Middle English, taken from Old English. It is true, as the good professor knew and as I've said previously in this thread, that the name "middle earth" exists in all Germanic languages, languages with which Tolkien was intimately familiar. Thus, it isn't possible to say that Tolkien took the name specifically from Norse and Norse mythology. There are certainly things that can be put down to Norse language (Gandalf--wand elf can only be from Old Norse) or Norse mythology (I'll stick with names and point to Thorin), this particular term is not one of them.

FB

Oh.. heh my bad, I always assumed that since Norse mythology came long before Tolkien's work that it stemmed from it. What also led me to believe so was the influence of Norse mythology that Tolkien derived some of his ideas and use of names from.

[Forkbeard]

Originally posted by Ragnarok
Oh.. heh my bad, I always assumed that since Norse mythology came long before Tolkien's work that it stemmed from it. What also led me to believe so was the influence of Norse mythology that Tolkien derived some of his ideas and use of names from.

I'm sorry, I probably sounded gruffer in that last post than I meant. Make no mistake, you are quite right that Norse mythology has a very significant influence on Tolkien, and some of his earlier works do seem to "stem" from it--I think you'll agree that it is seen very clearly in the Silmarillion. I'm just pointing out that the name "middle earth" is a general Germanic term, not exclusively Norse, and so therefore can't be said to be from Norse.

[Ragnarok]

Originally posted by Forkbeard
I'm sorry, I probably sounded gruffer in that last post than I meant. Make no mistake, you are quite right that Norse mythology has a very significant influence on Tolkien, and some of his earlier works do seem to "stem" from it--I think you'll agree that it is seen very clearly in the Silmarillion. I'm just pointing out that the name "middle earth" is a general Germanic term, not exclusively Norse, and so therefore can't be said to be from Norse.

That does make sense, since Tolkien was very immersed with linguistics.

[Master_Samwise]

or maybe the ring bearer wouldn't dissapear untill the ring was half way onto his finger, and thus there was middle in the title of middle earth.