The Middle of What?

[alatar]

It's well established that my youngest daughter is the center of the universe. Or that's at least what she believes to be true.

Studying some ancient writings this morning regarding geography, it dawned on me that I didn't know why Middle Earth was called 'Middle." Middle of what? Many cultures - and it's easy to see why - considered their main city or some important place to be the center, the middle, of everything. Just as with my daughter, in considering all of visible creation, a geocentric belief just makes sense...from a point of view. But what of Middle Earth?

Arda wasn't always the sphere that we know today. Before the Downfall of Númenor, Arda was presumably a flat plane, much like early human cultures believed of our earth. After that catastrophe, the straight roads were bent and Arda was changed into a sphere, presumably molded by Eru's hands like so much clay. Regardless, whether plane or sphere, much of the fun takes place within the confines of our much beloved Middle Earth.

Middle of what?

• Assuming the name came from the plane, we have Aman to the West of Middle Earth, and for it to be truly middle, there would need to be something to the East. And that land is...

• Assuming that the middle moniker isn't just a relic of the plane name, then Middle Earth is named why? Is it the middle world between heaven and hell, as again some ancient cultures considered? The middle of a sphere, to me, is within it - its center. The middle lands on a globe require a specific point of view; again, middle in relation to... Is it latitudinal - not too north, not too south?

Maybe the answer is right before my eyes, but I just can't see it.

[Ghazi]

I've seen maps that indicate there are continents to the east and south of Middle-Earth. I don't know if those maps are from earlier generations of Arda that were set aside though. If you look online you can quickly find an image of those maps.

[Eomer of the Rohirrim]

Isn't it from Midgard/Mittilagart/Middangeard, or whatever Germanic myth Tolkien preferred? These are names for our world, which was believed between other worlds. Perhaps he just named his world for ours.

[skip spence]

Originally Posted by Eomer of the Rohirrim

Isn't it from Midgard/Mittilagart/Middangeard, or whatever Germanic myth Tolkien preferred? These are names for our world, which was believed between other worlds. Perhaps he just named his world for ours.

I believe you're right. Middle Earth is just a translation of Midgård, the old scandinavian or nordic name for the earth. Tolkien has borrowed a lot more than this name from the old nordic mythologies by the way.

[Nogrod]

And it's not just the Scandinavian mythology...

In many cultures around the world there is a conception of there being three worlds: the world above (the sky), the world below (under the earth) and the middle-earth where we humans live. Especially in shamanistic cultures around the world this was pretty usual way to see things - and sounds pretty natural as well.

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by Nogrod

In many cultures around the world there is a conception of there being three worlds: the world above (the sky), the world below (under the earth) and the middle-earth where we humans live. Especially in shamanistic cultures around the world this was pretty usual way to see things - and sounds pretty natural as well.

Why shamanistic? Such an idea appeared at almost all cultures in the past in some way, and from the Near-eastern ancient civilisations through Greeks and others the concept of heavens/earth/underworld-sheol-hades-hell became a common view of the world in the hellenistic period, and being adopted this way it remains in the European (and of course through this also American and wherever the white man stuck his feet) subconscious to this time.

I believe Tolkien stated somewhere that Middle-Earth was supposed to refer to the men-inhabited world (exactly in the hellenistic view of "oikoumené", the inhabited world), as opposed to any other "spheres" - like heaven or hell (in our case probably just Valinor, resp. Aman; I am not aware of anything special being on the eastern side, but maybe the Empty Lands are a good thought - at least this is certainly not inhabited world) - so I believe the Midgard idea and what was said here before are on the good track.

[The Might]

No, no, Middle-earth really was in the middle.
Please note that initially Middle-earth was created as a perfect land with a north-south line of symmetry.
M-e was lying right between the two great seas, Belegaer in the W and the East Sea in the E. Symmetrical Aman liead W of Belegaer and the Land of the Sun laid E of the East Sea.

But, as we know Melkor just couldn't help break the symmetry.
I just found this picture of Arda in those times from Mrs. Fonstad's Atlas of Middle-earth:



And even later M-e still was in the middle, you can see more or less good maps in the Atlas or the Encyclopedia of Arda.

EDIT: Sorry if there is copyright problem with the picture, I can only provide the link if necessary.

[Elmo]

In the Akallabeth Tolkien talked of Aman, Middle Earth and Empty Lands to the East