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KOED realms: MUSPELHEIM ~ Ruled by Loki ~
Category: Uncategorized
MUSPELHEIM ~~RULED BY LOKI~~
Muspelheim
is the Norse Realm of KOED.
Muspelheim
(pronounced “MOO-spell-hame;” Old Norse Múspellsheimr,
“The World of Múspell“) is one of the Nine Worlds and the home of the fire giants.
The word
“Muspelheim” is recorded only in the Prose Edda of Snorri Sturluson, a late
work that can’t be taken at face value as representing authentic pre-Christian
Norse mythology. However, the basic cosmological principle it represents can be
tracked far into the Germanic past. Cognates of Múspell can be found in Old
High German and Old Saxon texts, meaning that the word and the concept it
denotes likely go back to the Proto-Germanic period. Its oldest meaning, when
one compares these various sources, seems to have been “end of the world
through fire.”
In earlier
Old Norse poetry, the word seems to refer to a giant who leads his “people” or
“sons” into battle against the gods during Ragnarok.
Even if the
idea of Muspelheim as a place rather than an event or a person is an invention
of Snorri’s, it’s a relatively minor accretion, and one which is broadly
consistent with the earlier uses of Múspell.
Muspelheim
features in both the creation of the world and its downfall. In the creation
narrative given by Snorri, fire from Muspelheim and ice from Niflheim meet in
the middle of Ginnungagap and forge the giant Ymir, the first being from whose
corpse the world was eventually shaped. During Ragnarok, the fire giant Surt,
who should probably be identified with the Múspell of Old Norse poetry, arrives
from the south (surely meant to be understood as the realm of heat and fire)
with a flaming sword to slay the gods and burn the world.
The
continental Germanic meaning of the word also implies this connection with a
cyclical eschaton (a theological word for the end of the world).
Members:
1. Loki: Norse God of Mischief, father of Laufey: http://www.fandomain.org/view_profile.php?member_id=2102
2. Laufey Lokidottir: daughter of Desdemona and Loki: http://www.fandomain.org/view_profile.php?member_id=2267
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