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The Middle Earth

Real Middle Earth Though its meaning may have shifted over the centuries since its Anglo-Saxon origins, ‘middle earth’ is far from fantasy. One of the most engaging books I have read this year is A Little Learning: A Victorian Childhood, by the novelist Winifred Peck (1882-1962).

One phrase Peck uses in recalling her earliest religious education caught my eye: she describes her first perceptions of spiritual belief as a ‘childish crystal world in a safe centre of middle earth’. That might mean heaven and hell, but it could also be understood in terms of physical space: ‘middle earth’ is not the unknown reaches of the sky, nor the secret abyss beneath the ground, but the area in between, which humans can perceive with our own eyes. Through Scott’s hugely popular works, Victorian children like Winifred Peck might learn to think of themselves as ‘inhabitants of middle earth’ – dwellers in a world apparently mundane, but with porous borders to other spiritual realms.

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