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Myrkviðr (Old Norse "mirky wood, dark wood",[1] English form Mirkwood) is the name of several forests in Norse mythology and literature. 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.[1][2] The direct derivatives of the name occurs as a place name both in Sweden and Norway, and related forms of the name occur elsewhere in Europe, most famously the Schwarzwald, and may thus well be a general term for dark and dense forests of ancient Europe.[3][4]
Etymology
The word myrkviðr is a compund of two words. The first element is myrk "dark", which is cognate to, among others, the English archaic/dialectal word for "dark", cf. murky.[2][5] The second element is viðr "wood, forest".[6] The word stems from Proto-Germanic *merk-jo-widuz.[citation needed]
The expression "dark wood" in Germanic and Slavic is idiomatized to mean "coniferous forest", as opposed to the "light" deciduous forests, compare the German Schwarzwald and Russian chyornyi les ( ), both meaning "Black Forest".
Localization
The localization of Myrkviðr varies between the sources.
- Meyjar flugu sunnan
- myrkvið í gögnum,
- Alvitr unga,
- örlög drýgja;
- þær á sævarströnd
- settusk at hvílask
- drósir suðrænar,
- dýrt lín spunnu.[7]
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- Maids from the south
- through Myrkwood flew,
- Fair and young,
- their fate to follow;
- On the shore of the sea
- to rest them they sat,
- The maids of the south,
- and flax they spun.[8]
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- Loci qvaþ:
- «Gvlli keypta
- leztv Gymis dottvr
- oc seldir þitt sva sverþ;
- enn er Mvspellz synir
- ríða Myrcviþ yfir,
- veizta þv þa, vesall! hve þv vegr.»[9]
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- Loki spake:
- "The daughter of Gymir
- with gold didst thou buy,
- And sold thy sword to boot;
- But when Muspell's sons
- through Myrkwood ride,
- Thou shalt weaponless wait, poor wretch."[10]
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Theories
J. R. R. Tolkien comments on Myrkviðr in a letter to his eldest grandson:
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Mirkwood is not an invention of mine, but a very ancient name, weighted with legendary associations. It was probably the Primitive Germanic name for the great mountainous forest regions that anciently formed a barrier to the south of the lands of Germanic expansion. In some traditions it became used especially of the boundary between Goths and Huns. I speak now from memory: its ancientness seems indicated by its appearance in very early German (11th c.-) as mirkiwidu although the *merkw- stem 'dark' is not otherwise found in German at all (only in O[ld] E[nglish], O[ld] S[axon], and O[ld] N[orse]), and the stem *widu- > witu was in German (I think) limited to the sense of 'timber,' not very common, and did not survive into mod[ern] G[erman]. In O.E. mirce only survives in poetry, and in the sense 'dark', or rather 'gloomy', only in Beowulf [line] 1405 ofer myrcan mor: elsewhere only with the sense 'murky' > wicked, hellish. It was never, I think, a mere 'colour' word: 'black', and was from the beginning weighted with the sense of 'gloom'...[11] |
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Modern influence
It was first anglicized as Mirkwood by William Morris in A Tale of the House of the Wolflings from 1888, and later by J. R. R. Tolkien in his fiction.[12]
See also
Notes
References
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