Myrkviðr
Encyclopedia
In Germanic mythology
, Myrkviðr (Old Norse
"mirky wood, dark wood" or "black forest") or, in anglicized form, Mirkwood, is the name of several forests.
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 Black Forest
(Schwarzwald), and may thus be a general term for dark and dense forests of ancient Europe.
poem Lokasenna
, and the heroic poems Atlakviða
, Helgakviða Hundingsbana I
and Hlöðskviða
, and in prose in Fornmanna sögur, Flateyjarbók
, Hervarar Saga
.
The localization of Myrkviðr varies by source:
Germanic mythology
Germanic mythology is a comprehensive term for myths associated with historical Germanic paganism, including Norse mythology, Anglo-Saxon mythology, Continental Germanic mythology, and other versions of the mythologies of the Germanic peoples...
, Myrkviðr (Old Norse
Old Norse
Old Norse is a North Germanic language that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and inhabitants of their overseas settlements during the Viking Age, until about 1300....
"mirky wood, dark wood" or "black forest") or, in anglicized form, Mirkwood, is the name of several forests.
The direct derivatives of the name occurs as a place name both in Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
and Norway
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
, and related forms of the name occur elsewhere in Europe, most famously the Black Forest
Black Forest
The Black Forest is a wooded mountain range in Baden-Württemberg, southwestern Germany. It is bordered by the Rhine valley to the west and south. The highest peak is the Feldberg with an elevation of 1,493 metres ....
(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 EddaPoetic Edda
The Poetic Edda is a collection of Old Norse poems primarily preserved in the Icelandic mediaeval manuscript Codex Regius. Along with Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda, the Poetic Edda is the most important extant source on Norse mythology and Germanic heroic legends, and from the early 19th century...
poem Lokasenna
Lokasenna
Lokasenna is one of the poems of the Poetic Edda. The poem presents flyting between the gods and Loki....
, and the heroic poems Atlakviða
Atlakviða
Atlakviða is one of the heroic poems of the Poetic Edda. One of the main characters is Atli who originates from Attila the Hun. It is one of the most archaic Eddic poems. It is preserved in the Codex Regius and the same story is related in the Völsunga saga...
, Helgakviða Hundingsbana I
Helgakviða Hundingsbana I
Völsungakviða, Helgakviða Hundingsbana I or the First Lay of Helgi Hundingsbane is an Old Norse poem found in the Poetic Edda...
and Hlöðskviða
Hlöðskviða
Hlöðskviða or The Battle of the Goths and Huns is sometimes counted among the Eddic Poems. It has been preserved as separate stanzas interspersed among the text in Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks . It is generally agreed that it was originally a poetic whole...
, and in prose in Fornmanna sögur, Flateyjarbók
Flateyjarbók
The Flatey Book, is an important medieval Icelandic manuscript. It is also known as GkS 1005 fol. and by the Latin name Codex Flateyensis.- Description :...
, Hervarar Saga
Hervarar saga
Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks is a legendary saga from the 13th century combining matter from several older sagas. It is a valuable saga for several different reasons beside its literary qualities. It contains traditions of wars between Goths and Huns, from the 4th century, and the last part is used as...
.
The localization of Myrkviðr varies by source:
- 1) The Maeotian marshesMaeotian marshesIn the geography of Antiquity the Maeotian marshes lay where the Don River emptied into the Maeotian Lake near Tanais. The marshes served as a check to the westward migration of nomad peoples from the steppe of Central Asia.The area was named after the Maeotae who lived around the Maeotian Lake....
, which separated the GothsGothsThe Goths were an East Germanic tribe of Scandinavian origin whose two branches, the Visigoths and the Ostrogoths, played an important role in the fall of the Roman Empire and the emergence of Medieval Europe....
from the HunsHunsThe Huns were a group of nomadic people who, appearing from east of the Volga River, migrated into Europe c. AD 370 and established the vast Hunnic Empire there. Since de Guignes linked them with the Xiongnu, who had been northern neighbours of China 300 years prior to the emergence of the Huns,...
in the Norse Hervarar sagaHervarar sagaHervarar saga ok Heiðreks is a legendary saga from the 13th century combining matter from several older sagas. It is a valuable saga for several different reasons beside its literary qualities. It contains traditions of wars between Goths and Huns, from the 4th century, and the last part is used as...
. - 2) The forest that separates the HunsHunsThe Huns were a group of nomadic people who, appearing from east of the Volga River, migrated into Europe c. AD 370 and established the vast Hunnic Empire there. Since de Guignes linked them with the Xiongnu, who had been northern neighbours of China 300 years prior to the emergence of the Huns,...
from the BurgundiansBurgundiansThe Burgundians were an East Germanic tribe which may have emigrated from mainland Scandinavia to the island of Bornholm, whose old form in Old Norse still was Burgundarholmr , and from there to mainland Europe...
. - 3) KolmårdenKolmårdenKolmården is a large forest that separates the Swedish provinces of Södermanland and Östergötland, two of the country's main agricultural areas, from each other.-History:...
("the dark forest"), in SwedenSwedenSweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
, in Sögubrot and in legends such as that of Helge Hundingsbane. - 4) The forest south of UppsalaUppsala- Economy :Today Uppsala is well established in medical research and recognized for its leading position in biotechnology.*Abbott Medical Optics *GE Healthcare*Pfizer *Phadia, an offshoot of Pharmacia*Fresenius*Q-Med...
in Styrbjarnar þáttr SvíakappaStyrbjarnar þáttr SvíakappaStyrbjarnar þáttr Svíakappa is a short story, a þáttr on the Swedish claimant and Jomsviking Styrbjörn the Strong preserved in the Flatey Book ....
. What remains of this forest today is called Lunsen. - 5) Uncertain locations, such as in the VölundarkviðaVölundarkviðaVölundarkviða is one of the mythological poems of the Poetic Edda...
, where it is probably located somewhere else in Scandinavia (WeylandWeylandIn Germanic and Norse mythology, Wayland the Smith is a legendary master blacksmith. In Old Norse sources, Völundr appears in Völundarkviða, a poem in the Poetic Edda, and in Þiðrekssaga, and his legend is also depicted on the Ardre image stone VIII...
is here described as a Finnish prince, which would make him a SaamiSami peopleThe Sami people, also spelled Sámi, or Saami, are the arctic indigenous people inhabiting Sápmi, which today encompasses parts of far northern Sweden, Norway, Finland, the Kola Peninsula of Russia, and the border area between south and middle Sweden and Norway. The Sámi are Europe’s northernmost...
prince). Stanza 1 (on the swan maidens):- Meyjar flugu sunnan
- myrkvið í gögnum,
- Alvitr unga,
- örlög drýgja;
- þær á sævarströnd
- settusk at hvílask
- drósir suðrænar,
- dýrt lín spunnu.
- 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.
- 5) Mythological. In other sources, such as the Poetic EddaPoetic EddaThe Poetic Edda is a collection of Old Norse poems primarily preserved in the Icelandic mediaeval manuscript Codex Regius. Along with Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda, the Poetic Edda is the most important extant source on Norse mythology and Germanic heroic legends, and from the early 19th century...
, e.g. LokasennaLokasennaLokasenna is one of the poems of the Poetic Edda. The poem presents flyting between the gods and Loki....
, the location seems to be between AsgardAsgardIn Norse religion, Asgard is one of the Nine Worlds and is the country or capital city of the Norse Gods surrounded by an incomplete wall attributed to a Hrimthurs riding the stallion Svadilfari, according to Gylfaginning. Valhalla is located within Asgard...
and MuspelheimMuspelheimIn Norse mythology, Muspelheim , also called Múspell, is a realm of fire. This realm is one of the Nine Worlds and it is home to the fire jötunn or the Sons of Muspell, and Surtr, their ruler. It is fire; and the land to the North, Niflheim, is ice...
, as Muspell's sons ride through it at RagnarökRagnarökIn Norse mythology, Ragnarök is a series of future events, including a great battle foretold to ultimately result in the death of a number of major figures , the occurrence of various natural disasters, and the subsequent submersion of the world in water...
. Stanza 42:- 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.»
- 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."
Theories
J. R. R. TolkienJ. R. R. TolkienJohn Ronald Reuel Tolkien, CBE was an English writer, poet, philologist, and university professor, best known as the author of the classic high fantasy works The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion.Tolkien was Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Pembroke College,...
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 SurtSurtrIn Norse mythology, Surtr or Surt is an eldjötunn. Surtr is attested in the Poetic Edda, compiled in the 13th century from earlier traditional sources, and the Prose Edda, written in the 13th century by Snorri Sturluson...
lives [...]."
Modern influence
It was first anglicized as MirkwoodMirkwoodMirkwood is a name used for two distinct fictional forests in J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium. In the First Age, the highlands of Dorthonion north of Beleriand were known as Mirkwood after falling under Morgoth's control. During the Third Age, the large forest in Rhovanion, east of the Anduin in ...
by William MorrisWilliam MorrisWilliam Morris 24 March 18343 October 1896 was an English textile designer, artist, writer, and socialist associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and the English Arts and Crafts Movement...
in A Tale of the House of the Wolflings from 1888, and later by J. R. R. TolkienJ. R. R. TolkienJohn Ronald Reuel Tolkien, CBE was an English writer, poet, philologist, and university professor, best known as the author of the classic high fantasy works The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion.Tolkien was Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Pembroke College,...
in his fiction.