About the meaning and origin of the name Mûspilli

The discussion about the meaning and the origin of the word mûspilli — the title of the famous Old High German poem — has not stopped for more than a hundred years and is replete with many versions, usually adjacent to one of the two extreme points of view — Christian or pagan.

Researchers pointing to the pre-Christian origin of this word associate its meaning, as a rule, with the concept of the fire destroying the earth (OHG *mû- ‘earth’, spilden ‘to destroy’). Most supporters of the Christian origin of this term believe that the first part of this complex name (mû-spilli) goes back to German *munþ- ‘mouth’ and the word means either Mundwort (‘oral word’) as a sign of fate, or Mundspruch (‘des Richters’) (sentence of the judge) as the Word of Christ at the Last Judgment. Some researchers, relying on a detailed analysis of biblical sources, come to the conclusion that mûspilli means a Mundtöter, i.e. Christ, ‘beating his enemies with the sword of his mouth’.

In the pre-written period of the existence of the continental Germanic languages, the nominal basis *mûdspellja > OHG mûspilli did not have a religious meaning and belonged to secular vocabulary. In Old High German and Old Saxon, this basis with the meaning of ‘the one who reminds’ (reminiscent) was used metaphorically as a nickname of the personified ‘Last Judgment’ and, speaking figuratively, acquired a religious-Christian meaning. The direct meaning of the name mûspilli associated with the concept of ‘memory’ is confirmed by etymological analysis: the first component of the studied composite (*mūd-) goes back to the Indo-European root *mēudh-, *mūdh-, *mūdh- ‘to think’, ‘to remember’, ‘to long for’, which left a trace in Goth. gamaudeins ‘memory’, maudjan ‘to remind’, ufarmaudei * ‘forgetfulness’. The second component, spilli, is a continuation of the Germanic basis *spella ‘speech’.