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Yggdrasil, in Norse mythology, is the name of a mythological ash tree, also known as the “World Tree”. The name Yggdrasil itself apparently means “the horse of Yggr,” Yggr (literally ‘Terrible One’) being one of the names of the god Odin. This giant, nurturing tree supported all the nine realms of the Norse universe, branching out over the entire world and up into heaven. Yggdrasil is described as the holy place of the gods, where they met each day as silver drops of dew trickled over the trees leaves.

Many mythic animals were associated with Yggdrasil. A wise eagle sat in the topmost branches, surveying the whole world. A hawk, Vedurfolnir, sat between the eagle’s eyes. Four deer, named Dain, Dvalin, Duneyr, and Durathror, continually ate the tree’s leaves and nibbled at its bark, while the goat Heidrun, whose mead-milk was drunk by Odin’s warriors in Valhalla, also fed on its leaves. Many creatures, especially a cruel and frightening dragon named Nidhogg (meaning “dreaded biter”), ate away at Yggdrasil’s roots from below. A squirrel named Ratatosk (meaning “Travel Tusk”) climbed up and down the tree trunk delivering spiteful insults between the eagle at the top and Nidhogg at the bottom. Bees fed on the honeydew that dripped from the tree, and the first two swans that ever existed swam in the water near the root that emerged in Asgard, the land of the gods.

Yggdrasil had three roots, each of which was associated with a body of water. The deepest root descended all the way to Niflheim, the realm of death, one of the nine realms of the Norse universe. It was there that the dragon Nidhogg lay, in a well that was the source of all the rivers in the world. Another root ended in Jotunheim, home of the frost giants. Beneath this root was the fountain of knowledge, prophecy, and poetry, and its guardian was Mimir, the personification of wisdom. When the most powerful god, the war god Odin, came and asked Mimir for a single drink from the well, Odin had to give one of his eyes in payment. He accepted the price, and after he drank, he was suddenly so wise that he also became the god of seers, poets, and sorcerers.

Under the third root, the one in Asgard, the heavenly home of the gods, was another important well, called the Well of Fate or Weird’s Well. The water from this well was so sacred that anything it touched turned as white as the inside of an eggshell. It was at this well that the gods met, riding to it each day over Bifrost, the bridge that linked Earth and heaven. Near the well was a great hall, home of the three Norns, or fates—Urd (past), Verdande (present) and Skuld (future) — who ruled over the destinies of mortals and gods alike.

Despite the constant loss of its leaves, the rotting of its trunk, and the chewing away of its root by the great dragon Nidhogg, Yggdrasil always remained alive and green because every day the Norns drew water from the well and sprinkled it over the tree. They also applied healing clay from the well onto the tree trunk in the places in which it had rotted and been eaten away by the deer; this kept the tree’s limbs from withering.

According to tradition, the trembling of the World Tree would signal the beginning of the end of the world, Ragnarok, and the great final battle between the gods and the giants. Yggdrasil would remain standing after Ragnarok, according to one story, and two humans would emerge from the tree and repopulate the world.

Adapted from “Yggdrasil”, Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica. 20 Feb. 2022. kids.britannica.com/students/article/Yggdrasil/314289