Yggdrasil
The world tree of Norse myth: an evergreen ash that stands at the centre of the world, its branches spreading over everything and its three roots reaching into the realms of gods, giants and the dead.
Meaning
Store norske leksikon describes Yggdrasil as an ash that stands in the middle of the world, always green, with branches over the whole world. Its three roots reach to Asgard, where the three norns water the tree from Urd’s well to keep it fresh; to the frost-giants, where Mimir’s well of wisdom lies; and to the spring Hvergelmir in the deepest part of the land of the dead, where the serpent Nidhogg gnaws at the root. A squirrel, Ratatosk, runs up and down the trunk carrying insults between Nidhogg and the eagle at the top. The Eddic poem Völuspá says the tree grows “green by Urth’s well”. In English the name is said ig-druh-sil, Dictionary.com gives.
Origin and history
The name is a riddle. Store norske leksikon splits it into Ygg, “the terrible one”, and drasill, “horse”; the Danish encyclopedia Lex explains that Yggr is a name of Odin, and that the “horse” is probably the tree on which Odin hanged himself to win secret knowledge, as told in the Eddic poem Hávamál. Lex also reads a rite behind the myth: a tree at a cult site, such as Old Uppsala, tended and cared for as though the whole world were renewed each day. It notes a detail of the texts: the tree is evergreen only if it is watered.
A tree on the Mammen axe
One side of the ceremonial axe from the Mammen grave in Denmark, buried in the winter of 970–71, carries a tree. The National Museum of Denmark says it “may symbolise the Christian Tree of Life or the pagan tree Yggdrasil”: the grave dates from the years when Denmark was becoming Christian, and the museum reads the axe both ways.
The tree today
The Troth, an American organisation for what it calls inclusive Heathenry, uses as its logo a tree with three knotwork roots and nine branches.
See also
Mjölnir (Thor’s hammer), Gungnir, Sleipnir, Huginn and Muninn, Valknut, Triple horn of Odin.
Sources
- Yggdrasil (Store norske leksikon), Store norske leksikon
- Yggdrasil (Lex), Lex, Danmarks Nationalleksikon
- The Poetic Edda (Bellows translation), Henry Adams Bellows (trans.), 1923, American-Scandinavian Foundation (Project Gutenberg), Voluspo, stanza 19
- An axe with double meaning, National Museum of Denmark
- The grave from Mammen, National Museum of Denmark
- The Troth, The Troth
- Yggdrasil (Dictionary.com), Dictionary.com
Last reviewed September 26, 2026 by Rory Hansen. How we research