Some Remarks On The Lexicon of Muspilli

This study considers an aspect of Muspilli which, despite the numerous studies on the text, was often overlooked and never extensively analysed: its lexicon. In this article I shall focus on three particularly interesting nouns, OHG hilfa, mord and muspilli, and on their meaning in this Old High German eschatological text. Unlike OHG muspilli, the occurrences of OHG hilfa and mord were never closely examined: as I hope to demonstrate, the interpretation which has generally been given to them is not exactly accurate. As for OHG muspilli, on the other hand, many before me have tried to trace back its etymology and have debated its meaning. As I will argue in the article, though, one hypothesis was never given enough attention by the scholarship, leading to what might be an incorrect interpretation of the term which could, indeed, not mean ‘end of the world’.