The main source of information about Scandinavian mythology was an Icelandic scholar named Snorri Sturulson (c. 1179-1241), who wrote down the myths in what has come to be called the Prose Edda. There are a number of translations available on the internet, as well as at Amazon.com.

On the northeastern banks of the Great River, which runs from north to south bisecting the land, lies the forest of Mirkwood, where the evil Sauron built up his power. Still further east the dwarves reside, beneath Erebor, the Lonely Mountain. The Misty Mountains, over which the travelers cross, rise to the west of the Great River. Further west is Eriador, where many of the hobbits reside and where the first volume of the trilogy, The Fellowship of the Rings, begins.

In the 1760’s, the Scottish poet James Macpherson (1736-1796) claimed dubiously to have discovered and translated tales written by Finn’s son, Oisin, whom he called Ossian. Two of his popular books are Fingal, an Ancient Epic Poem in Six Books (1762) and Temore (1763), an epic that he claimed was translated from the Gaelic of Ossian. Both Finn and his son frequently appear in Irish myth and literature, most notably in the poetry of William Butler Yeats.

mo mhian (”muh VEE-uhn”) = my wish