The World Tree
Yggdrasil is the ash tree known as the World Tree in Norse mythology. It is an immense ash tree that is central and considered very holy. It is not, however, the Tree of Life.
Description[]
The gods go to Yggdrasil daily to assemble at their Things. The branches of Yggdrasil extend far into the heavens, and the tree is supported by three roots that extend far away into other locations; one to the well Urðarbrunnr in the heavens, one to the spring Hvergelmir, and another to the well Mímisbrunnr. Due to Yggdrasil being part of the Tree of Life, it too has its own pathways to other realms like the Axis Mundi but in this case, its branches would connect to hyperspace tunnels which the Old Norse describe as Bifröst.
Creatures live within Yggdrasil, including the squirrel Ratatoskr, the wyrm (dragon) Nidhoggr, an unnamed eagle, and the stags Dáinn, Dvalinn, Duneyrr and Duraþrór. Its branches cover the entire earth, its trunk pierces the sky and holds up several worlds, including Alfheim, the abode of the Light Elves. Its three roots stretch into Jötunheimr and Asgard. It is said that it will live through Ragnarök.
Overview[]
Yggdrasil was revealed to be a small aspect of the Tree of Life much like the Erdtree with the fae. Yggdrasil was grown using a single branch and leaf from the Tree of Life with which Odin and his brothers Vili and Vé then fashioned some of the Nine Realms around it using Ymir's corpse. When all was said and done, Odin claimed the cosmological space surrounding Yggdrasil, and held by it, as his own divine domain.
Yggdrasil was involved in Odin's quest for knowledge and power. Since Yggdrasil was a part of the Tree of Life, Odin knew that by looking into the depths of its power, he would gain knowledge of said power that would allow him to peer into the threads of fate woven by the Great Weaver. When Odin hung and speared himself for nine days on the World Tree, he uttered the words that he had ‘sacrificed himself onto himself’. This stanza gives a description of the unity existing between the Godhead and the Tree in the myths. To emphasise this connection, it is old English the word treow, which means both tree and truth. Etymologically, then, truth and tree grow out of the same root.
Subsequently, in the Norse creation myth, man and woman originated from trees. Humans from Norse times are all the sons and daughters of the Ash and Elm tree: the first man was called Ask, born from the Ash, and the first woman Embla, born from the Elm. Their oxygen offers us the primordial conditions for life. Ask and Embla sprouted from Yggdrasil’s acorns, and so it is that every human being springs from the fruit of Yggdrasil, then to be collected by two storks, who bring them to their longing mothers-to-be.
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