A squirrel named Ratatoskr carries insults between an eagle and a dragon along its trunk
Grímnismál gives the whole bestiary of the tree in a few stanzas.
Myth · Norse
Yggdrasil
Norse mythology — the world tree
Yggdrasil is the immense ash tree at the centre of the Norse cosmos, holding the nine worlds in its branches and roots. Beneath its roots lie the well of fate where the Norns sit, Mímir's well of wisdom and the spring Hvergelmir; a dragon gnaws at it from below, deer strip its shoots and a squirrel runs up and down carrying insults. It suffers constantly, yet it stands, and it shelters the two humans who survive the end of the world.
How to spot them
- ▸An evergreen ash whose three roots reach three wells in three worlds
- ▸An eagle at the top, a dragon at the bottom, and a squirrel carrying abuse between them
- ▸Four stags browse its branches; its side rots and it groans
- ▸Quiz clue: 'Ratatoskr', 'Níðhöggr', 'Urðarbrunnr', 'the name means the steed of the terrible one'
Stories & episodes
Three maidens who set the fates of men sit at a well beneath one of its roots
Urðr, Verðandi and Skuld, who water the tree with white clay from the Well of Urðr.
Odin hung on it for nine nights to win the runes
Its name is usually read as 'the horse of Yggr' — the gallows that carried the god.
Gnawed from below by the dragon Níðhöggr while four harts crop its shoots
Dáinn, Dvalinn, Duneyrr and Duraþrór browse the branches; the serpent chews at the root.
Two humans hide inside it through the fires at the end of the world
Líf and Lífthrasir shelter in Hoddmímis holt and live on the morning dew.
The gods ride to their court beneath it every day, and Thor has to wade
They cross Bifröst to the well at its root, except Thor, whose weight and heat would break the bridge.
Quick-fire facts
- •It is an ash tree (askr); its three roots reach the Well of Urðr, Mímir's well and the spring Hvergelmir in Niflheim
- •Mímir's well is where Odin left an eye in pledge for a single drink
- •The unnamed eagle at its top has a hawk, Veðrfölnir, sitting between its eyes
- •Its usual etymology is 'Yggr's horse' — Yggr, 'the terrible one', being Odin, and a horse being a kenning for the gallows
- •Heimdall's horn is said in Völuspá to be hidden beneath it
- •It also bears the names Mímameiðr and Læraðr, the tree over Valhalla browsed by the goat Heiðrún and the hart Eikþyrnir
- •Adam of Bremen describes a great evergreen tree beside the temple at Uppsala, often compared with it
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Sources
- Sacred Texts Archive — The Poetic Edda (Bellows translation) Grímnismál, Völuspá and Vafþrúðnismál
- Snorri Sturluson — The Prose Edda (Brodeur translation) Gylfaginning for the roots, wells and Norns
- World History Encyclopedia — Yggdrasil