Editing Balrog (section)

=== ''Sigelwara'' ===

{{#tag:imagemap|
File:Tolkien's Sigelwara Etymologies.svg{{!}}thumb{{!}}upright={{{upright|1.7}}}{{!}}right{{!}}{{{caption|Imagemap with clickable links. Tolkien's ''[[Sigelwara Land|Sigelwara]]'' etymologies, leading to major strands of [[Tolkien's legendarium|his Legendarium]] including Balrogs and also the [[Silmaril]]s and [[Harad]]rim.<ref name="Sigelwara Land" group=T/>{{sfn|Shippey|2005|pp=48–49}} }}}

rect  10  10  170  200 [[Silmaril]]
<!--rect 300  10  500  200 [[Balrog]]-->
rect 700  10  890  200 [[Harad]]

rect 250 200  650  350 [[Sigelwara Land]]
rect 650 200  900  350 [[Aethiopia]]

rect  10  400  400  500 [[Sól (Germanic mythology)]]<!-- same as Sigel -->
rect 500  400  890  500 [[hearth]]

rect  10  510  200  665 [[sowilō]] <!-- Sun-rule -->
rect 210  510  450  665 [[Seal (emblem)|seal]] <!-- ''Sigillum'' -->

rect  10   10  900  675 [[commons:File:Tolkien's Sigelwara Etymologies.svg]]
}}

Tolkien was a professional [[philologist]], a scholar of comparative and historical [[linguistics]].<ref group=T>{{harvnb|Carpenter|2023|loc=#165 to [[Houghton Mifflin]], 30 June 1955 }}</ref> The Balrog and other concepts in his writings derived from the Old English word ''Sigelwara'', used in texts such as the ''[[Codex Junius]]'' to mean "Aethiopian".<ref name="Exodus">{{cite web |title=Junius 11 "Exodus" ll. 68-88 |url=http://mcllibrary.org/Junius/exodus.html |publisher=The Medieval & Classical Literature Library |access-date=1 February 2020}}</ref>{{sfn|Shippey|2005|p=54}} He wondered why the Anglo-Saxons would have had a word with this meaning, conjecturing that it had formerly had a different meaning. He [[Emendation (textual)|emended]] the word to ''Sigelhearwan'', and in his essay "[[Sigelwara Land]]",<ref name="Sigelwara Land" group=T>[[J. R. R. Tolkien|Tolkien, J. R. R.]], "[[Sigelwara Land]]" [https://www.jstor.org/stable/43625831 ''Medium Aevum'' Vol. 1, No. 3. December 1932] and [https://www.jstor.org/stable/43625895 ''Medium Aevum'' Vol. 3, No. 2. June 1934.]</ref> explored in detail the two parts of the word. He stated that ''Sigel'' meant "both ''sun'' and ''jewel''", the former as it was the name of the Sun [[rune]] [[*sowilō]] (ᛋ), the latter connotation from [[Latin]] ''sigillum'', a [[Seal (emblem)|seal]].{{sfn|Shippey|2005|pp=48-49}} He decided that ''Hearwa'' was related to Old English ''heorð'', "[[hearth]]", and ultimately to Latin ''carbo'', "soot". He suggested from all this that ''Sigelhearwan'' implied "rather the sons of [[Muspelheim|Muspell]] than of [[Hamitic|Ham]]",{{efn|Tolkien meant that the ''Sigelhearwan'' were not just dark-skinned but also fiery.}} a class of demons in Northern mythology "with red-hot eyes that emitted sparks and faces black as soot".<ref name="Sigelwara Land" group=T/> The Tolkien scholar [[Tom Shippey]] states that this both "helped to naturalise the Balrog" and contributed to the [[Silmaril]]s, which combined the nature of the sun and jewels.{{sfn|Shippey|2005|pp=49, 54, 63}} The Aethiopians suggested to Tolkien the [[Harad]]rim, a dark southern race of men.<ref name="CT Sigelwara Land" group=T>{{harvnb|Tolkien|1989}}, ch. 25, pp. 435, 439 note 4 (comments by [[Christopher Tolkien]])</ref>{{sfn|Lee|Solopova|2016|pp=66–67}}