InGermanic mythology,Myrkviðr (Old Norse "dark wood"[1] or "black forest"[2]) is the name of several European forests.
The direct derivatives of the name occur as a place name both inSweden andNorway. Related forms of the name occur elsewhere in Europe, such as in theBlack Forest (Schwarzwald), and may thus be a general term for dark and dense forests of ancient Europe.[3][4]
The name was anglicised bySir Walter Scott (inWaverley) andWilliam Morris (inThe House of the Wolfings) and later popularized byJ. R. R. Tolkien as "Mirkwood".
The wordmyrkviðr is a compound of two words. The first element ismyrkr "dark", which is cognate to, among others, the English adjectivesmirky andmurky.[5][6] The second element isviðr "wood, forest".[7]
The name is attested as a mythical local name of a forest in thePoetic Edda poemLokasenna, and the heroic poemsAtlakviða,Helgakviða Hundingsbana I andHlöðskviða, and in prose inFornmanna sögur,Flateyjarbók,Hervarar Saga,Ála flekks saga.[1][5][8]
The localization of Myrkviðr varies by source:
Meyjar flugu sunnan
myrkvið í gögnum,
Alvitr unga,
örlög drýgja;
þær á sævarströnd
settusk at hvílask
drósir suðrænar,
dýrt lín spunnu.[11]
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.[12]
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.»[13]
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."[14]
J. R. R. Tolkien comments onMyrkviðr in a letter to his eldest grandson:
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.?) asmirkiwidu 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[ld] E[nglish]mirce only survives in poetry, and in the sense 'dark', or rather 'gloomy', only in Beowulf [line] 1405ofer 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'...[15]
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, whereSurt lives [...]."[2]
Myrkviðr was first anglicized asMirkwood bySir Walter Scott inWaverley, followed byWilliam Morris inA Tale of the House of the Wolfings from 1888, and later byJ. R. R. Tolkien in his fiction.[16]