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Sigelwara Land
"Sigelwara Land" is an essay by J. R. R. Tolkien that appeared in two parts, in 1932 and 1934. It explores the etymology of the Old English word for the ancient Aethiopians, Sigelhearwan, and attempts to recover what it might originally have meant. Tolkien suggested that its two elements were most likely sun/jewel and coal/hearth, perhaps meaning something like a soot-black fire-demon.
The Tolkien scholar and philologist Tom Shippey suggests that Tolkien's detailed study of the word may have influenced him in his creation of elements of his fantasy world of Middle-earth, including the Silmarils or forged sun-jewels, the Balrogs or dark fire-demons, and the Haradrim, men of the hot south.
Tolkien's essay treats the etymology of the Old English word for the ancient Aethiopians, Sigelhearwan. Tolkien concluded that, while the meaning of the first element was evidently sigel "Sun", the meaning of the second element hearwan was not definitely recoverable, but might be guessed at:
a symbol ... of that large part of ancient English language and lore which has now vanished beyond recall, swa hit no wære.
The phrase Sigelwara land appears in Exodus, a free translation of the Book of Exodus (Codex Junius 11):
.. be suðan Sigelwara land, forbærned burhhleoðu, brune leode, hatum heofoncolum.
[... southward lay the Ethiop's land, parched hill-slopes and a race burned brown by the heat of the sun ...]
— Codex Junius 11, "Exodus" ll. 68-88
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Sigelwara Land
"Sigelwara Land" is an essay by J. R. R. Tolkien that appeared in two parts, in 1932 and 1934. It explores the etymology of the Old English word for the ancient Aethiopians, Sigelhearwan, and attempts to recover what it might originally have meant. Tolkien suggested that its two elements were most likely sun/jewel and coal/hearth, perhaps meaning something like a soot-black fire-demon.
The Tolkien scholar and philologist Tom Shippey suggests that Tolkien's detailed study of the word may have influenced him in his creation of elements of his fantasy world of Middle-earth, including the Silmarils or forged sun-jewels, the Balrogs or dark fire-demons, and the Haradrim, men of the hot south.
Tolkien's essay treats the etymology of the Old English word for the ancient Aethiopians, Sigelhearwan. Tolkien concluded that, while the meaning of the first element was evidently sigel "Sun", the meaning of the second element hearwan was not definitely recoverable, but might be guessed at:
a symbol ... of that large part of ancient English language and lore which has now vanished beyond recall, swa hit no wære.
The phrase Sigelwara land appears in Exodus, a free translation of the Book of Exodus (Codex Junius 11):
.. be suðan Sigelwara land, forbærned burhhleoðu, brune leode, hatum heofoncolum.
[... southward lay the Ethiop's land, parched hill-slopes and a race burned brown by the heat of the sun ...]
— Codex Junius 11, "Exodus" ll. 68-88