In Germanic mythology, Myrkviðr (Old Norse "mirky wood, dark wood" or "black forest") or, as anglicised by William Morris and later adopted by JRR Tolkien, Mirkwood, 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 (Schwarzwald), and may thus be a general term for dark and dense forests of ancient Europe.
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 murky. 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, Ãla flekks saga.
The localization of Myrkviðr varies by source:
- The Maeotian marshes, which separated the Goths from the Huns in the Norse Hervarar saga
- The forest that separates the Huns from the Burgundians
- Kolmården ("the dark forest"), in Sweden, in Sögubrot and in legends such as that of Helge Hundingsbane
- The forest south of Uppsala in Styrbjarnar þáttr SvÃakappa (the present remnant of this forest is called Lunsen)
- Uncertain locations, such as in the Völundarkviða, where it is probably located somewhere else in Scandinavia (Weyland is here described as a Finnish prince, which would make him a Saami prince). Stanza 1 (on the swan maidens):
- 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:
Theories
J. R. R. Tolkien 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.
See also
- Járnviðr
- Hercynian Forest, an ancient forest of southern Germany
- Miriquidi
Notes
References
