Myrkviðr

Myrkviðr (Old Norse = dark forest ) is in the Norse mythology of the Edda and in saga literature the name of a mythical forest and in the past the name of Scandinavian locations usually for forests or wooded areas.

The German Black Forest is a formal equivalent in the motif of naming or naming. As a model of these dark forests in the sense of the Myrkviðr within the Germania is the Hercynia silva described by Caesar and Tacitus, who has experienced a corresponding reception as a model within the Germanic myth and legend poetry up to the high medieval northwestern Nordic literature.

Nomenclature

The basic form of the old Norse form Myrkviðr is a two-part composition, which is formed from the forms Germanic * merkwaz (Old Saxon mirki , Old English mierce ), German dark and * wiðuz , German tree, wood, forest . The Old English and Saxon documents have an expansion of the meaning of "bad" in the first link. The analogous documented Old Low German form Miriquidi or Mircwidu appears among others in Thietmar von Merseburg (Chron. 6, 10; 8, 28) as a name for the Ore Mountains and their wooded foreland. In addition to the evidence in the high medieval Icelandic-Norwegian saga literature and in Edda texts , there are numerous evidence in the corpus of Scandinavian place names.

reception

The (primeval) forest as a border can be found for the Germania magna with the ancient geographers / historians such as Tacitus in the description of the Hercynia silva . This represented - with the Ore Mountains as a part of it - an important topographical object for the Germanic cultural area, the influence of which was reflected in intellectual culture as well as in the composition of myths, legends and ideas up to the North-West European High Middle Ages - the dark, difficult-to-penetrate, dangerous forest. The phrase in the Eddic Lokasenna , verse 42 "er Muspelz synir ríða Myrkvið yfir" ("when Muspel's sons ride over (through) the Myrkwid") is seen as a representation of the Hercynian forest. Another reception in the Nordic sources of Myrkviðr as a distinct border forest can be found in the saga literature in the Hlöðskviða ("Hunnenschlachtlied") as a divide between Goths and Huns.

literature

• Martin Eggers: Myrkviðr . In: Heinrich Beck, Dieter Geuenich, Heiko Steuer (Eds.) Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde Vol. 20, de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2001, ISBN 3-11-017164-3 , pp. 460–61.
• Rudolf Much : Myrkviðr . In: Johannes Hoops (Ed.) Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde 1st edition, Vol. 3, Karl J. Trübner, Strasbourg 1915–16, p. 291.
• Vladimir Orel: A Handbook of Germanic Etymology , Brill, Leiden / Boston 2003, ISBN 90-04-12875-1 .
• Klaus von See , Beatrice La Farge, Eve Picard, Ilona Priebe and Katja Schulz: Commentary on the songs of the Edda. Vol. 2: Götterlieder (Skírnismál, Hárbarðslióð, Hymiskviða, Lokasenna, Þrymskviða) , Winter, Heidelberg 1997, ISBN 3-8253-0534-1 .
• Rudolf Simek , Hermann Pálsson : Lexicon of old Norse literature. The medieval literature of Norway and Iceland (= Kröner's pocket edition . Volume 490). 2nd, significantly increased and revised edition. Kröner, Stuttgart 2007, ISBN 978-3-520-49002-5 .
• Rudolf Simek: Lexicon of Germanic Mythology (= Kröner's pocket edition. Volume 368). 3rd, completely revised edition. Kröner, Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 3-520-36803-X .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Vladimir Orel: A Handbook of Germanic Etymology , Leiden / Boston 2003, pp. 268, 462
2. ^ Heinrich Tiefenbach: Old Saxon Concise Dictionary. A Concise Old Saxon Dictionary . de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2010, ISBN 978-3-11-023234-9 , p. 275.
3. ↑ Jan de Vries: Myrkr . In the S. Old Norse Etymological Dictionary . Brill, Leiden / Boston / Cologne, 2nd improved edition 2000, p. 398
4. ↑ Klaus von See (et al.): Commentary on the songs of the Edda. Vol. 2: Götterlieder , Heidelberg 1997, p. 470
5. ↑ Martin Eggers: Myrkviðr , Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde Vol. 20 Berlin / New York 2001, p. 460