The Poetic Edda on Yggdrasil

The > Volume I > Introductory Note

• attestation: Yggdrasil is characterized by greatness in the verse.

  "19. An ash I know, | Yggdrasil its name, With water white | is the great tree wet; Thence come the dews | that fall in the dales, Green by Urth's well | does it ever grow."

• attestation: Yggdrasil is characterized by greatness in the verse.

  "35. Yggdrasil's ash | great evil suffers, Far more than men do know; The hart bites its top, | its trunk is rotting, And Nithhogg gnaws beneath."

The > Volume I > Notes

• attestation: Yggdrasil is the world-ash that symbolizes the universe

  "The tree: the world-ash Yggdrasil, symbolizing the universe"

• attestation: Yggdrasil literally means 'the Horse of Othin,' named after his self-hanging ordeal on the tree.

  "the ash Yggdrasil (literally "the Horse of Othin," so called because of this story)"

• attestation: An eagle sits in the branches of Yggdrasil with the hawk Vethrfolnir between his eyes, according to Snorri's paraphrase.

  "An eagle sits in the branches of the ash-tree, and he is very wise; and between his eyes sits the hawk who is called Vethrfolnir."

• attestation: Mimameith ('Mimir's Tree') is the ash Yggdrasil that overshadows the whole world, with the well of Mimir at its base

  "Mimameith ("Mimir's Tree"): the ash Yggdrasil, that overshadows the whole world. The well of Mimir was situated at its base"

• attestation: The fruit of Yggdrasil, when cooked, has the power of assuring safe childbirth

  "The fruit of Yggdrasil, when cooked, is here assumed to have the power of assuring safe childbirth"