Land of Nod

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Origin

The Land of Nod is a place in the Book of Genesis of the Hebrew Bible, located "to the east of Eden", to which Cain was banished after murdering his brother Abel. The Hebrew word nod means "wandering".

"And Cain went out from the presence of the LORD, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden." (Genesis 4:16, King James Version)

This passage is generally recognized as a mistranslation; "Nod"(נוד) is the Hebrew root of the verb "to wander"(לנדוד). The simplest interpretation of Genesis 4:16 is that Cain was cursed to wander, not that he was exiled to a "Land of Wanderers" otherwise absent from the Old Testament.

Places Named \"Land of Nod\"

Land of Nod is the name of a small hamlet in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It is located at the far end of a two mile long road which joins the A614 road at Holme-on-Spalding-Moor. The Land of Nod is also a large house (now exclusive hotel) and forested estate situated in Headley Down, Hampshire owned by the Whitaker family.

Popular culture

The term has more recently been associated with being asleep, and was supposedly first used in this context in print by Jonathan Swift in his A Complete Collection of Genteel and Ingenious Conversation (1738). Another is a poem titled [The Land of Nod] by Robert Louis Stevenson from the [A Child's Garden of Verses and Underwoods] collection.

Neil Gaiman used the term to refer to The Dreaming in his The Sandman series of graphic novels.

In the World of Darkness role-playing setting by White Wolf Game Studio, the land of Nod is the home in exile of Caine, the first vampire.

East of Eden, The bible was read to James Dean, speaking of him as Cain, and being banished to the Land of Nod, East of Eden, the title of the film.

The above quote is mentioned in Command and Conquer, and is thought to be the origin of the name for the Brotherhood of Nod.

Colloquially, the state of heroin or opioid intoxication is referred to as "being in the land of Nod". This is because the most pleasant phase of the high is characterized by people "nodding off" into their own little world.

Tom Waits mentions the land of Nod in his song Singapore from the 1985 album "Rain Dogs", "We sail tonight for Singapore, we're all as mad as hatters here I've fallen for a tawny Moor, took off to the land of Nod..."

The term is also used on the AM radio show Coast to Coast AM to describe the location from where the program is transmitted.

The [Land of Nod] is also a high-end children's furniture, toy, bath and bedding store. It is owned by Crate and Barrel.

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