Myrkviðr


In Germanic mythology, Myrkviðr is the name of several European forests.
The direct derivatives of the name occur as a place name both in Sweden and Norway, and related forms of the name occur elsewhere in Europe, most famously the Black Forest, and may thus be a general term for dark and dense forests of ancient Europe.
The name was anglicised by Sir Walter Scott and William Morris and later popularized by JRR Tolkien as Mirkwood.

Etymology

The word myrkviðr is a compound of two words. The first element is myrk "dark", which is cognate to, among others, the English adjectives mirky and . The second element is viðr "wood, forest".

Attestations

The name is attested as a mythical local name of a forest in the Poetic Edda poem Lokasenna, and the heroic poems Atlakviða, Helgakviða Hundingsbana I and Hlöðskviða, and in prose in Fornmanna sögur, Flateyjarbók, Hervarar Saga, Ála flekks saga. The Latinized form Miriquidui is found referring to a real place in the writings of the eleventh-century German historian Thietmar of Merseburg.
The localization of Myrkviðr varies by source:
  1. The Ore Mountains in the writings of Thietmar von Merseburg.
  2. The Maeotian marshes, which separated the Goths from the Huns in the Norse Hervarar saga
  3. The forest that separates the Huns from the Burgundians
  4. Kolmården, in Sweden, in Sögubrot and in legends such as that of Helge Hundingsbane
  5. The forest south of Uppsala in Styrbjarnar þáttr Svíakappa
  6. Uncertain locations, such as in the Völundarkviða, where it is probably located elsewhere in Scandinavia. Stanza 1 :
  8. Mythological. In other sources, such as the Poetic Edda, e.g. Lokasenna, the location seems to be between Asgard and Muspelheim, as Muspell's sons ride through it at Ragnarök. Stanza 42:

    9. Theories

comments on Myrkviðr in a letter to his eldest grandson:
Regarding the forests, Francis Gentry comments that "in the Norse tradition 'crossing the Black Forest' came to signify penetrating the barriers between one world and another, especially the world of the gods and the world of fire, where Surt lives ."

Modern influence

It was first anglicized as Mirkwood by William Morris in A Tale of the House of the Wolfings from 1888, and later by J. R. R. Tolkien in his fiction.