Yggdrasil

Yggdrasil is the great ash world-tree of Norse mythology, the immense tree that stands at the centre of the cosmos and holds the nine worlds together in its roots and branches. Ever-green and ever-suffering, it is the axis around which gods, giants, the dead, and the living all have their place.

What is Yggdrasil?

Yggdrasil is described in the Poetic Edda and in Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda as an ash tree greater than any other, its limbs spreading over all the worlds and reaching above the heavens. It is the fixed point of the Norse universe: the realm of the gods, the world of humans, the lands of the giants, and the halls of the dead are all bound into its structure. The gods hold their daily council beneath its branches. The tree is alive and it endures torment — a stag bites its buds, its sides rot, and the dragon tears at its roots — yet it stands, sustained by the waters of the wells at its feet.

The three roots and the wells

Three great roots hold the tree, and beneath each lies a well or spring. One root reaches to the Well of Urðr, where the Norns — the shapers of fate — dwell and where the gods ride to hold court; the Norns draw water from the well each day and pour it over the tree to keep it from rotting. A second root reaches Mímir's well, the spring of wisdom guarded by Mímir, whose waters hold the memory of all that has happened. The third root descends to the cold spring Hvergelmir, the source of many rivers, in the mists of the world below.

The creatures of the tree

Yggdrasil teems with life. An eagle of great knowledge sits in its highest branches, with a hawk perched between its eyes, while far below the dragon Níðhöggr gnaws at the roots. Between the two runs the squirrel Ratatoskr, scurrying up and down the trunk to carry spiteful words back and forth between eagle and serpent. Four harts — Dáinn, Dvalinn, Duneyrr, and Duraþrór — range through its branches and feed on its foliage, and countless serpents lie beneath it beside Níðhöggr, gnawing the tree without cease.

Odin and the winning of the runes

The tree's name binds it to Odin. Yggdrasil is most often read as "Odin's steed" — from Yggr, one of Odin's names, and drasill, "horse" — a poetic term for the gallows, because to hang is to ride the tree. In the poem Hávamál, Odin tells how he hung on the windswept tree for nine nights, wounded by his own spear, given to himself as a sacrifice, taking neither food nor drink until, screaming, he seized the runes and fell back. It is fitting, then, that Yggdrasil belongs to the rune Eihwaz, the rune of the yew and the world-axis, the pillar that joins the worlds above and below.

Symbols and legacy

Yggdrasil is the most complete symbol of order in Norse cosmology — the living frame that holds a fated universe together and mirrors its health. It survives even Ragnarök: when the worlds burn and the gods fall, a man and a woman are said to shelter within the tree and step forth to repeople the reborn earth. From medieval manuscripts to modern art, games, and tattoos, the world-tree endures as the enduring image of the Norse cosmos and of the connection that binds all things.