Note 75 — Chapter II · THE MARK.
Reading edition
Grimm is of opinion that the word Marc itself originally denoted forest, and that the modern sense is a secondary one, derived from the fact of forests being the signs or marks of communities. Deut. Gränzalterthümer; Berl. 1844. There can be no doubt that forests were so: in Old Norse the two ideas, and the words by which they are expressed, flow into one another: Mörk (f) is silva, Mark (n) is limes. In the Edda and Sögur, Myrkviðr is the common name for a wood: thus, sem þessi her kom saman, riða þeir á skóg þan er Myrkviðr heitir, hann skilr Húnaland ok Reiðgota land; they ride to the forest which is called Myrkviðr (mearcwidu in Anglosaxon) which separates Huna land from Reidgota land. Fornm. Sög. i. 496. Though given here as a proper name, it is unquestionably a general one. Conf. Edda, Völund. cv. 1.
meyjar flugu sunnan
myrkvið igögnum.
and so in many passages. The darkness of the forest gives rise also to the adjective murky.