Ginnungagap
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For the drone/ambient band, see Ginnungagap (band).
In Norse mythology, Ginnungagap ("yawning abyss") was the vast, primordial void that existed prior to the creation of the manifest universe,[1] corresponding (both in etymology and in meaning) to the Greek notion of Chaos.[2]
In the northern part of Ginnungagap lay the intense cold of Niflheim, and to the southern part lay the equally intense heat of Muspelheim. The cosmogonic process began when the effulgence of the two met in the middle of Ginnungagap.
[edit] See also
[edit] Notes
- ^ Simek (1995:132); German: "Ginnungagap ist [...] der Name des kosmischen Urraums vor der Erschaffung der Welt"
- ^ Old Norse gína like English yawn are from Common Germanic *gainôjan, in turn from an Indo-European root *ghen-, whence also Greek χάος "gaping void" and χαίνω "to gape". Old Norse gap "chasm" is cognate with English to gape, perhaps from an (unrecorded) Old English *gapian. Cognate is Sanskrit jabh- "to gape", as it were from a PIE *g'ebh-.[dubious ]
[edit] References
- de Vries, Jan (1977). Altnordisches etymologisches Wörterbuch. Leiden: Brill.
- Simek, Rudolf (1995). Lexicon der germanischen Mythology. Stuttgart: Alfred Kröner. ISBN 3-20-36802-1.
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