Yggdrasil
Connecting all of the Nine Worlds is Yggdrasil, a colossal ash tree. The name Yggdrasil is usually translated as ‘Odin’s horse’, Ygg (‘the terrible one’) being another name for the father of the gods, and drasil meaning ‘horse’, an archaic term for gallows, for it was from Yggdrasil that Odin hung himself in sacrifice for the runes (see below for the story). Yggdrasil however is older even than Odin, and grew from a seed after the worlds began. Although its precise function differs amongst the sources for our understanding of Norse Mythology, all agree on Yggdrasil’s importance and sanctity.
Snorri’s source for his discussion of Yggdrasil is Grímnismál (‘Grimnir’s Sayings’), a poem included in the Poetic Edda. Grímnismál notes that the Æsir ride to Yggdrasil each day ‘to sit as judges’ (33). Under its three roots dwell, individually, Hel, the frost-giants, and people. There is a squirrel, Ratatoskr (‘bore-tooth’), who carries words from the eagle at the top of the tree to Nidhogg, a dragon, who gnaws at Yggdrasil’s roots, and back again, stirring up enmity between them. There are also 4 stags – Dáinn, Dvalinn, Duneyrr and Duraþrór – who stretch their necks to feast upon Yggdrasil’s branches.
Grímnismál further elaborates that Yggdrasil is slowly being consumed from above and below:
The ash of Yggdrasil suffers agony
More than men know:
A hart bites it from above, and it decays at the sides,
And Nidhogg rends it beneath. (Grímnismál, 35)
The 4 harts are thought to represent the 4 seasons, and in this reading Yggdrasil’s species is important to note. The Ash Tree is deciduous, meaning that it appears to die in winter, then comes to life again in spring, making it a potent symbol of death and rebirth, a strong theme throughout Norse Mythology.
The roots of Yggdrasil are also important symbols. The 3 roots drink water from the land of the dead, the land of people, and the land of the frost-giants, and transport it up to where the branches grow, from which it drips as moisture onto the earth. Yggdrasil is tended by the Norns, female Fates who control the destiny of men and gods alike by carving runes on the tree trunk. Yggdrasil thus not only connects the Nine Worlds but past (in the form of the water from Hel), the present, and the future (in the form of the Norns).