The Land of NodBeatrice Pearse
I love this old painting of jumbled, sleeping babies. At 3 am, it's every mother's dream. We know the "Land of Nod" is a mythical place of sleep. But the root of the word Nod (eretz-Nod) is a Hebrew verb meaning "to wander." In the Book of Genesis, Nod is the place East of Eden where Cain flees after murdering his brother Abel:
Cain flying before Jehovah's curse
Fernand-Anne Piestre, 1880
I thought Cain headed to Nod with just his poor wife, but in this painting he has plenty of wicked helpers to help them on their wicked way. Anyway, Nod was the start of a nomadic life for all of Cain's unlucky descendants who were called the Kenites. Wandering endlessly around the desert was not the lifestyle of the rich and famous in the Old Testament.
One of John Steinbeck's most famous novels is East of Eden, and you may remember the classic Elia Kazan film about the betrayal of brothers. It's my favorite James Dean movie:
East of Eden, or Nod, shows up in popular games and music. On his 2001 Love and Thief album, Bob Dylan wrote a song about people "Livin' in the Land of Nod, Trustin' their fate to the hands of God." I don't know that one, but I listen to his Gates of Eden song on my Ipod. If you play games (I don't) then you may know that a versions of Nod are part of the World of Darkness and Command and Conquer.
So how did East of Eden come to mean sleep? Part of it is a pun on the word, as in going off to the land of Nod is to "nod off." Also, opium or heroin intoxication is referred to as being in the land of Nod, the most pleasant part of the high when people "nod off" into their own little world. I wouldn't know that either, but all of us know the peaceful release of falling asleep when we're tired.
Here's a sweet poem from the Child's Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson:
The Land of Nod
Cain flying before Jehovah's curseFernand-Anne Piestre, 1880
I thought Cain headed to Nod with just his poor wife, but in this painting he has plenty of wicked helpers to help them on their wicked way. Anyway, Nod was the start of a nomadic life for all of Cain's unlucky descendants who were called the Kenites. Wandering endlessly around the desert was not the lifestyle of the rich and famous in the Old Testament.
One of John Steinbeck's most famous novels is East of Eden, and you may remember the classic Elia Kazan film about the betrayal of brothers. It's my favorite James Dean movie:
East of Eden, or Nod, shows up in popular games and music. On his 2001 Love and Thief album, Bob Dylan wrote a song about people "Livin' in the Land of Nod, Trustin' their fate to the hands of God." I don't know that one, but I listen to his Gates of Eden song on my Ipod. If you play games (I don't) then you may know that a versions of Nod are part of the World of Darkness and Command and Conquer.
So how did East of Eden come to mean sleep? Part of it is a pun on the word, as in going off to the land of Nod is to "nod off." Also, opium or heroin intoxication is referred to as being in the land of Nod, the most pleasant part of the high when people "nod off" into their own little world. I wouldn't know that either, but all of us know the peaceful release of falling asleep when we're tired.
Here's a sweet poem from the Child's Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson:
The Land of Nod
From breakfast on through all the day
At home among my friends I stay,
But every night I go abroad
Afar into the land of Nod.
All by myself I have to go,
With none to tell me what to do--
All alone beside the streams
And up the mountain-sides of dreams.
The strangest things are these for me,
Both things to eat and things to see,
And many frightening sights abroad
Till morning in the land of Nod.
I never can get back by day,
Nor can remember plain and clear
The curious music that I hear.
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