1968: Tolkien Using Real Etymology in Lord of the Rings pt 1 May 5, 2020

Tolkien may be popularly known writing Lord of the Rings, but he was also an Oxford professor of philology. In 1932 and 1934 he wrote papers detailing how the word Sigelwara (or 'Sigelhearwan') was the Old English word for Ethiopia, such as used in the Junius Manuscript, a codex of Old English biblical poetry. As he outlines it, it literally means 'sun' (sigel) 'burnt' (hearwan, related to 'hearth'). His focus on the word does not end there though, since in the Lord of the Rings he named one of the peoples from Far Harad, a continent to the South, the 'Haradwaith' from the same 'hearwan' as in Old English.
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