| Muse: December 16, 2004 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| World Tree | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
In its earliest myths, humanity has sought to bring order to the seeming chaos beyond the pale of safe borders by constructing mythic cosmologies. For the ancients, the gods brought order by defeating terrible monsters and forming the earth. Yet beyond the gods, there existed an entity greater and more enduring than the gods. In the tales of Oðin, Thor, Loki and the rest of Norse mythology, Yggdrasil, the World Tree towers over all the events from creation to Ragnarøk, “the very structure, the living energy…of the whole universe”.[1] Yggdrasil’s roots stretch beneath the grounds upon which Scandinavian mythology takes place, linking the realms of the stories together in its branches and beneath its leaves. |
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| In this paper I will show how Yggdrasil serves as the axis mundi for the Scandinavian imagination. I will first discuss the ancient cosmological worldview followed by a look at the prevalence of the world tree or pillar within those cosmologies. I will then show how Yggdrasil functions as the unifying feature between the threefold and ninefold worlds of Norse cosmology, and appropriately conclude with some thoughts on the role Yggdrasil serves in Scandinavian eschatology. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ANCIENT COSMOLOGY | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| In the creation of the world as put down by Snorri in his Prose Edda, King Gylfi is told that “In the beginning not anything existed” save Ginnungagap, the ‘Open Void’.[2] Yet within this open void, or perhaps upon its borders existed the worlds of Niflheim and Muspell. As the Edda continues the story of creation, the cosmos becomes only more convoluted with rivers of milk, oceans of blood, giant cows, and dwarves who hold up a sky fashioned from the skull of a giant. The creation of the world as told in the Edda is impossible to comprehend for the modern mind raised to empirical evidence and only recently beginning to return to concepts of mystery through modern quantum physics. To begin with, if nothing existed in the beginning, then Niflheim and Muspell cannot be part of the Void, because by definition the Void is empty. Questions arise of where each realm lies, and how big are these dwarves who have the fortitude to hold up the sky? If we cannot get past these opening concepts, how will we deal with a tree that has its roots in the underworld, the heavens and the realm of the giants all at once? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| As an itinerant speaker at Christian summer camps for teens, I often hear such questions concerning the book of Genesis; how could the land produce vegetation on the day before the sun was created? How could photosynthesis take place? As a result, the modern Christian fundamentalist struggles to figure out how to deal with a literal seven day creation in light of current scientific thought, trying to synthesize two modes of thinking that just aren’t compatible. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| The modern reader trying to apprehend how a person living in ancient Scandinavia perceived the creation of the world faces the problem of thinking empirically, whereas the ancient world thought in both phenomenological and mythic terms. The story of creation as told in the Edda doesn’t seek to explain things scientifically, as we understand science today, but rather cosmologically. Cosmology “gives us a story about how we came to be here—and how we fit into that story.”[3] The ancient Hebrews had no concept of photosynthesis; they were asking where they had come from as a people, and the first account of creation in Genesis answers that question, framing its cosmology around the centrality of the ritual Sabbath day. As with Terry Pratchett’s fictional Discworld, “the inhabitants of this place, it is obvious, won’t have any truck with global theories.” | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| The idea of ancient cosmology could be explained as “landscapes of the imagination,” whose maps “are always sketched in metaphor. One needs imagination to be able to read them.”[5] While it is unlikely that the ancient peoples who used these myths as their belief system would have considered their cosmologies “metaphors”, the modern reader must do so. The elements of the cosmology may not make sense to us, but the “powers they embody represent something of the explanatory force that natural or ‘scientific’ law expresses for us.”[6] “We cannot return to the mythological thinking of an earlier age,”[7] nor can we make myths fit our modern paradigms of reason. Instead, it will be sufficient for the modern reader to understand that to the ancients, “the world was alive with mythological beings. They saw the stars as living silver, bursting into flame in answer to the eternal music. They saw the sky as a jewelled tent, and the earth as the womb whence all living things have come. To them, the whole of creation was ‘myth-woven and elf-patterned.”[8] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| THE WORLD TREE IN ANCIENT COSMOLOGY | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| While the Prose Edda gives a rather detailed description of Yggdrasil, its function within the mythology is never explicitly stated. To better understand Yggdrasil as the World Tree or axis mundi for the Scandinavian mind, we must look at the prevalence and role of this archetype in other cultures. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| “The symbol of axis mundi, as delineated in the writings of Mircea Eliade is said to be religious man’s central principle for the organization of sacred space.”[9] In organizing sacred space, or cosmology, almost all cultures feature a central pillar, tree, mountain, ziggurat, temple or city around which the rest of the universe is ordered. Each culture saw history as unfolding from its own central point. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| It is at the axis mundi that man can commune with the gods, or descend to the depths of the underworld. And so at Sinai Moses is given the ten commandments, Buddha gains enlightenment beneath the Bodhi tree, and Oðin hangs upon Yggdrasil to obtain the secret of the runes. In several Asiatic traditions, “the shaman is said to ascend the tree, in order to find diagnostic knowledge or healing power.”[11] The world tree symbolizing the axis mundi exists at the center of shamanistic culture because it is the conduit for travel between the worlds, especially in Northern Asia.[12] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| In Persian myth, this central point was a tree whose roots “pierced down in to the abysmal watery deep” and whose “foliage supported Zikum, the primordial heavens, and overshadowed the earth”.[13] The concept of a “sky-high tree” is found in Hungarian folktales, and there is even a memory of this idea in the fairy tale of Jack and the Beanstalk, where the giant plant provides a pathway between the banality of earth and a magical, upper realm.[14] In China and Japan, there are legends of “an enormous metal pine which grows in the north at the centre of the world,” while Russian folklore speaks of “an iron-tree, the root of which is the power of God, while its head sustains the three worlds, the heavenly ocean of air, the earth, and hell with its burning fire and brimstone.”[15] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Akin to the world tree is the world pillar of which Irminsul, the great column of Saxon belief which supported the universe is an example.[16] Similarly, the Phoenicians saw the universe as a great tent, “its axis a revolving cosmic tree, supporting a blue canopy on which the heavenly bodies were embroidered.”[17] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| The sacred mountain as cosmic center is found throughout ancient Jewish scripture, first at Sinai, then later with Zion. Where a sacred mountain was not geographically available, one could be built as the ziggurats of many cultures attested to, serving as “the pivotal point in the center of the sacred circle of space, where the earthly and heavenly powers joined…”[18] At times, the concepts of mountain and tree as axis mundi were combined, and “the world tree was placed on the summit of the world mountain.”[19] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| In modern religion, one could cite the Christian cross “which Medieval legends held to be made from the wood of the Tree of Life”[20], the Ka’bah of Islam, or the Buddhist Bodhi Tree. Only in the case of the Ka’bah does one find an actual physical manifestation of the axis mundi. In the other cases, the sacred tree or mountain is not confined to a specific geographical location, but is apprehended as a spiritual reality. Christians and Buddhists worship all around the world, and even though modern Judaism has been forced “to reduce its dependency upon the Temple Mount…the nexus of relationship between the Jew and the Holy Land was never compromised by the full symbolization of sacred space…”[21] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| This trend in Judaism lead to a less sacramental approach to the act of worship, and within the mysticism of Kabbalah, presents us with an excellent paradigm of the axis mundi to use in understanding Yggdrasil’s role in Norse cosmology. Kabbalah’s tree of life, depicted by a diagram of sacred geometry (figure 1) was never claimed to have ever existed in an empirical sense, but nevertheless forms a framework for the understanding of the Kabbalistic belief system. The cosmology of Scandinavian mythology’s nine worlds can be diagrammed in a similar fashion, as is shown in figure 2. The tree of life is said to exist in the “primordial space” called the pleroma, from whence “arise the archetypes of all being, the forms, determined by the structure of the…creator God who takes a hand in creation.”[22] It is within this idea of primordial, archetypal, sacred space that Yggdrasil also resides, beyond the confines of a world of empiricism, the axis mundi of Norse mythic reality. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Figure 1 | Figure 2 |
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 [23] |
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| Yggdrasil as the Scandinavian cosmology’s Axis Mundi | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| A fair deal of the writing on Yggdrasil is concerned with the designation of the World Tree as an ash in the mythology, or in speculating if the tree at Uppsala was revered as an earthly manifestation.[24] It is the author’s opinion that while such endeavours may be profitable to anthropology or philology, it misses the World Tree for the proverbial trees. To ascertain the exact species of tree or the location of the sacramental trees is to miss Yggdrasil as a “myth woven and elf-patterned” vision. It is true Yggdrasil is “…identified as an ash tree, although it is immediately clear that this is no ordinary ash but a tree of many worlds and beings.”[25] It may be true that certain localized trees were seen as an epiphany of the World Tree, but the ancient understanding of Yggdrasil was far more cosmological. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| The threefold world is spoken of in the Prose Edda; “The tree is held in position by three roots that spread far out…”[27] These three great roots draw upon the water of three separate wells, spanning three of the worlds; the well of Hvergelmir in Niflheim, Mímir’s Well near the edge of Ginnungagap, and the Well of Urð, which is in the heavens.[28] Speculation as to the nature of each well could be endeavoured, but as both Mímir’s Well and the Well of Urð are associated with the gaining of wisdom, it is likely that the use of the number three here is calling attention to the intersection of the World Tree with the wells, which in addition to representing the source of wisdom are also associated with concepts of time and fate. Time and fate then, become a part of the role Yggdrasil plays as the World Tree, as will be seen in the discussion on eschatology. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| A further link between Yggdrasil and Mímir’s well is found in Oðin’s role as a shaman in Norse mythology. In his quest for hidden knowledge, Oðin maims himself, by sacrificing his eye for a drink for the well of Mímir. In the Hávamál, Oðin is said to have “hung on the wind-tossed tree all of nights nine, wounded by spear.”[29] The wind-tossed tree is commonly held to be Yggdrasil; parallels have been suggested between Oðin’s sacrifice upon the World Tree and the crucifixion of Christ,[30] but Oðin’s actions are clearly as a seer, not a saviour.[31] Having endured this trial, Oðin gains the secret of the runes, once again connecting Yggdrasil with the wells of wisdom. It is also significant that the World Tree of Norse mythology is, as with the World Trees of other cultures, associated with shamanic practices. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| The ninefold world is spoken of in the Vøluspá; “Nine worlds I know, the nine abodes of the glorious world tree…” Figure 2 shows Yggdrasil as axis mundi, the shamanic gateway to all the worlds in the Scandinavian cosmology, while figure 3 illustrates it in a fashion which was likely closer to what it was likely thought of by the ancient Norse. “At certain points in the Edda poems we find the inference that the realm of the gods was not at one level in space, but viewed as a series of worlds, one above the other.”[32] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| This image of the ninefold world is an important one, since it illustrates an important mythic concept about the World Tree, that of the guardian tree. None of the gods could truly be trusted; while Loki was branded the trickster, Oðin is by no means the benevolent father figure of Christianity’s trinity. He walked about in disguise and left warriors on the field of battle in their time of need for his own gain. There is something solid and enduring about the imagery of a great tree, suspending the cosmos. Better that Yggdrasil, the eternal World Tree holds all things together than the temperamental All-Father. “It was said to spread its limbs over every land, and…formed a link between the gods, mankind, the giants and the dead…”[33] Yggdrasil displays an impartiality that no god, giant or monster could claim. All of the non-human players in Norse mythology have their loyalties, their alliances, and their self-serving motives. The World Tree is the only one that truly watches out for mankind and protects it, sheltering them beneath its branches. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Figure 3 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 [34] |
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| Yggdrasil in Norse eschatology | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| The Norns, the “three maidens…who rule the destinies of men”[36] are entrusted with the critical duty of “watering the world tree Yggdrasil to keep it ‘evergreen’.”[37] Were Yggdrasil simply a tree in the garden of the gods, this detail could be passed over, but as the world tree, the life of the tree is inextricably linked to the life of the universe itself. As ‘Ygg’s horse’ it is etymologically linked with one of Oðin’s many appellations, but it is unlikely that Oðin is the creator of Yggdrasil. The tree was present at the beginning of all things, not growing but suddenly being part of the cosmos. One has to wonder if Yggdrasil has always existed in or above the void of Ginnungagap, hiding in the shadows, waiting to be nourished by the waters of wisdom. The following words from the Svipdagsmál seem suggestive of such an idea; “no man knoweth from what roots it doth rise; by what it falleth the fewest guess: nor fire nor iron will fell it.”[38] While it “doth ill abide more than to men is known”[39] in the form of the four harts who eat its new growth and Niðhögg the serpent who gnaws at its roots, Yggdrasil is an evergreen, a symbol of eternal hope in the Norse mind. It is the “tree of fate, upon which the welfare of the universe seems to depend.”[40] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| As a result, when King Gylfi is told that there will come a day when “Yggdrasil trembles, old outspreading ash, and groans,” it is a sure sign the end of the world has come. In the wake of Ragnarok comes Surt, “to fling fire over the whole world.”[41] In the Vøluspá, a variant rendering of the “gutting fire” whose flames reach to the “very heaven” could be “Fire against Yggdrasil,”[42] a World-Fire to burn the World Tree. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| “Yet this is not the end.”[43] Even now, in the midst of a fire that should surely destroy it, the World Tree brings shelter. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| As the old gods die and the old world is destroyed in fire, a remnant survives within the “wood” of Hoddmímir, which means “treasure of Mímir”[45] and is “probably identical with the world-tree, Yggdrasil.”[46] The tree which has upheld the universe, so vast that it’s height spans throughout the nine worlds of Norse mythology becomes the conduit for one last journey from one world to another, the old to the new. Like Noah’s Ark, it weathers the cataclysm of Ragnarøk to ferry mankind’s future to the safety of the new world, “while the rest of the world suffered the great winter.”[47] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| The Poetic Edda tells us that in the wake of the world-fire and the great winter, the earth rises once again from the sea, and vegetation and plants begin to grow again.[49] While it is not explicitly stated, the meaning of this is clear, given Yggdrasil’s role in the Scandinavian cosmology. Like the saplings that emerge after a forest fire, the green growing things which appear in the final lines of the Vøluspá are the telltale signs that all is well in the universe. “It is clear that Ragnarøk is not the end of time but one of, apparently, several temporal points in the cosmos that mark beginnings.”[50] Tragedy and disaster may come, but life goes on, sheltered in the branches of the guardian World Tree. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| CONCLUSION | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| As we have seen, the cosmological mindset of the ancient peoples could easily accept and comprehend a tree so vast that its branches upheld the heavens; further, that such a tree (or mountain, or pillar) exists in many cultures as the axis mundi or sacred center, the place where the divine touches the earth. Yggdrasil, as axis mundi of Scandinanian myth, remains one of the clearest and most famous examples of this sacred center manifested as a tree. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Spanning all nine worlds and drinking from the wells of time and fate, Yggdrasil is inextricably bound up in the doom of the gods. It is implicit that so long as the World Tree is green, the world lives on. For humanity to survive, so must the tree. Norse mythology sees Yggdrasil as guardian tree throughout history, and finally at the end of all things protecting the last two humans by carrying them to the new world. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| I conclude that not only is Yggdrasil the most famous of World Trees, but that it is also the most complete manifestation of the archetype. As a shamanic gateway to hidden knowledge, it provides enlightenment and wisdom. As tree of life it produces fruit for the gods and shelters humanity. It fulfills the role of sustaining guardian even more than the Christian cross, which is merely the vehicle for the salvation act, since Yggdrasil becomes the saviour itself. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| To say that Yggdrasil plays only a small part in the Norse myths would be akin to saying the stage upon which a play is performed has only a small part in the play. Yggdrasil is the stage where upon the Norse gods perform their acts; it is there when the lights come up, and still there when the curtain is drawn, waiting in the darkness for the next play to begin, on into eternity. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| BIBLIOGRAPHY | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| ENDNOTES | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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