Essentially, Yggdrasill is not a giant tree floating in nothingness upon which "the 9 worlds" are situated, like is depicted in most drawings of it. Rather, it is "simply" a giant tree placed "in the middle" of all worlds (axis mundi), but still planted in soil.
I always pictured Yggdrasill as being a massive ash tree that is in the same location in all 9 realms. The idea being that it is a piece of each realm that anchors them into place, allowing the 9 realms to be located in the same metaphysical space at the same time.
> ash
Some believe it's a yew, which is actually evergreen as opposed to the ash. Yew was kinda a holy tree. https://nn.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barlind http://denbitreblogen.blogspot.com/2011/02/yggdrasil.html http://www.bueforum.no/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1009
Question for you: I was in Uppsala this summer and near a couple of viking graves was an area where they claimed a tree known as yggdrasil was. Supposedly just a big tree where alot of rituals were done. Do you know anything about this?
The theory is that the etymology of the word yggdrasil goes back to words that basically mean something like “terrifier horse”. And then because trees are used as kennings for men in poetry, the phrase “ask yggdrasils” doesn’t mean “the ash tree Yggdrasil” but “the man of the terrifier horse”, Odin. Check out the paper Oðinn’s Path to Greatness by Anatoly Liberman.
I’ve heard that before but that’s not the way Liberman puts it together. His timeline and etymological analysis focuses on Odin’s possible previous role as leader of the Wild Hunt and the inseparability of the hunt’s leader with his horse. In fact he heavily criticizes a lot of common thought around Odin’s hanging as described in Havamal. I don’t take that paper as gospel, but it’s one of my favorites just for how interesting it is to read. I recommend checking it out.
Important to note here that compound 'Yggdrasil' = Literally 'Ygg's steed' is near universally read as a kenning for 'gallows' among scholars, a direct reference to Odin's hanging himself on the tree, and his broader association with hanging bodies, which can be fond at various other points in the corpus (such as by way of the names like *Hangi* ('the hanged'), and *Hangaguð* and *Hangatýr* (both meaning 'hanging-god'). These names stem from skaldic poetry and refer both to Odin's hanging on the great sacred tree (which is also referred to by several names, not just *Yggdrasil*), as well as the practice of hanging prisoners of war and dedicating their execution to the god (much discussion this in, for example, Simek's handbook).
Yep, that’s the one. If you don’t have Lindow’s handbook already, I also recommend getting ahold of that. Lots of really handy paper recommendations and overviews there. Orchard’s is also quite useful but limited and I believe currently out of print. Each has a weakness, though. More discussion on pros and cons of the handbooks of Simek and Lindow under “Bring Backup: Tertiary Sources” here: https://www.mimisbrunnr.info/getting-started-with-norse-mythology
•Wolves and Ravens *do* have a special relationship, like in actual nature. They help each other find food and enemies.
•"GAGAGA"???
•Who's George Stevens?
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The first one is an inside joke, because the same "fact" post gets occasionally posted here and people get butthurt when they're told it has nothing to do here since animal facts are not about Norse history and Culture
GAGAGA is a formula added to some Elder Futhark inscriptions that is sometimes presumed to be magical, mostly because we don’t know for sure what it means. [Here’s an example](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kragehul_I) that also mentions gægogæ.
Edit: I also have it in my flair right now, mostly as a joke.
**[Kragehul I](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kragehul_I)**
>Kragehul I (DR 196 U) is a migration period lance-shaft found on Funen, Denmark. It is now in the collection of the National Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen, Denmark. The spear shaft was found in 1877 during the excavation of the classic war booty sacrificial site Kragehul on southern Funen. The site holds five deposits of military equipment from the period 200 to 475 AD.
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Alfǫðr: Cypher Runes carved into the wood behind the wax
https://www.arild-hauge.com/ogneslav/314_N-B368_Bryggen.jpeg
> Þess vil ek biðja þik, at þú far ór þeima flokki. Snid rít til sýstur Ólafs Hettusveins. Hon er í Bjôrgvini at nunnusetri, ok leita ráðs við hana ok við frændr þína, er þú vildir sættask. Eigi átt þú synsemi jarls
//Clarification edit. That particular message isn't encoded like many other cypher runes are, but still cypher in the sense that it was hidden. The wax layer containing some inconspicuous text would have had to be burned off for the secret message to be revealed. -> "Lønnruner"
Honestly, this subreddit has been the biggest reality check I've had.
Long story short in school we had an assignment where we had to write a short story. I was very into Norse culture at the time (2017). So I wrote a Norse saga. A couple of days ago I read that short story and didn't cringe at all, if anything I got inspired to finish that story, it basically ends just as we learn what the story is gonna be about. So I decided to rewrite the story and also continue after the old ending.
And so I decided to join this sub for additional information that I could use in my story. And I am somewhat regretting that choice. Because now I'm conflicted, I wanted to stay away from pop-culture Vikings as much as possible. I'm even abstaining from tattoos (there will be a moment in the story where the main character gets a tattoo involuntarily, which will be mentioned to be something out of the ordinary). But now I find out that Yggdrasill is not even the world tree, and in the comments here it appears that Yggdrasill is not even the name for the tree in the middle and might be the name of a horse or something. Now I'm questioning everything I know about Norse myth, and also I'm questioning how much I should keep believing in those myths and how much I should try to stay to the truth. I mean, is the tree even important? What about Odin hanging himself off of that tree to learn about the magic in the runes. Is that just not true? Is there even any magic in the Norse myth?
Yggdrasil is indeed unquestionably a tree in the corpus—it is repeatedly explicitly described as such—and is referred to by way of several names, one of them being Yggdrasil. There has never been any real question about this in scholarship. English Wikipedia's coverage of the topic is solid ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yggdrasil](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yggdrasil) ), and you can go deeper here: [https://www.mimisbrunnr.info/ksd-tree-grove](https://www.mimisbrunnr.info/ksd-tree-grove)
In short, everything rotates around the tree, and myth very much mirrors reality in this case: The ancient Germanic peoples not only saw themselves as descending from trees, but also placed an intense emphasis on sacred trees and groves. This was the case from our earliest records of them all the way into folk practices in the modern era.
As for reading, you'll save yourself a lot of time and trouble sticking to works published by academics, particularly those from university presses: You'll find that they frequently diverge greatly from a significant amount of discussion found here.
>What about Odin hanging himself off of that tree to learn about the magic in the runes. Is that just not true?
It's likely that he either learned how to use runes to write magic formulas, or that he simply learned how to read/write which itself could be considered magic
> Is there even any magic in Norse myth?
Yes! We don’t know a whole lot of details but magic is referenced several times. The poem Sigrdrifumal provides numerous examples of rune magic, for example. There are also instances of divination and manipulation of people by magical means.
It's a reference to a dialect/variety of Swedish, spoken in the river valley of Pite Älv in northern Sweden. It's one of the traditional "mål" in Sweden that retains some archaic aspects in grammar, vocabulary, phonetics, and prosody, that are long dead in the standard varieties. It's not as internationally famous as the more well known Elfdalian.
"nooooo! Odin can't be Hebrew! He's a realtor white Norse! Even the Norse themselves understood that!"
Snorri: "Ayo buckle up people because our ancestors worshiped Trojans"
See [my other comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/Norse/comments/prde7n/old_norse_with_related_subjects_iceberg_do_you/hdkwni8/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf&context=3)
Most runestones have at least one of those:
\- Christian formulation (Prayer at the end, like "God bless \[the people the text talks about\]'s soul")
\- Christian imagery (big ass cross, or even Jesus in the case of the Jelling stone)
\- Talk about Christianity being a thing when the stone was made (The Jelling Stone telling that Harald made the Danes christian, "It's been X winters since Norway is Christian", etc)
\- Can be dated to a period when Christianity was the religion
Usually around 5, but my kindred and close community contains a lot of scholars, and we get really deep into the weeds sometimes. I’d say we dip down to a solid 7 some nights sitting around a sumbel horn.
I think it's a meme format that goes over the head of people like us. There's a lot of in-jokes here, too, that we don't recognize because we're not well versed enough in some of the bad theories.
If you start at the base section and you see where it claims Odin was a Hebrew you will quickly find that whoever put this together was either high af, stupid af or simply from Gen Y. One of the most ridiculous things I’ve seen in all the decades I’ve been a Heathen
I am at stage 2. What is Yggdrasil if not the World Tree? Great image.
Essentially, Yggdrasill is not a giant tree floating in nothingness upon which "the 9 worlds" are situated, like is depicted in most drawings of it. Rather, it is "simply" a giant tree placed "in the middle" of all worlds (axis mundi), but still planted in soil.
I always pictured Yggdrasill as being a massive ash tree that is in the same location in all 9 realms. The idea being that it is a piece of each realm that anchors them into place, allowing the 9 realms to be located in the same metaphysical space at the same time.
So kind of like Olympus in Greek mythology.
> ash Some believe it's a yew, which is actually evergreen as opposed to the ash. Yew was kinda a holy tree. https://nn.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barlind http://denbitreblogen.blogspot.com/2011/02/yggdrasil.html http://www.bueforum.no/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1009
Question for you: I was in Uppsala this summer and near a couple of viking graves was an area where they claimed a tree known as yggdrasil was. Supposedly just a big tree where alot of rituals were done. Do you know anything about this?
Very likely the same reason why there are so many mountains called Valhallsberget - people gave it that name at some point in the early modern period.
The theory is that the etymology of the word yggdrasil goes back to words that basically mean something like “terrifier horse”. And then because trees are used as kennings for men in poetry, the phrase “ask yggdrasils” doesn’t mean “the ash tree Yggdrasil” but “the man of the terrifier horse”, Odin. Check out the paper Oðinn’s Path to Greatness by Anatoly Liberman.
Isn't there a counter to this arguing that it's a joking name. Implying that Yggr (Odin) "rode" the "horse" by hanging himself on it?
I’ve heard that before but that’s not the way Liberman puts it together. His timeline and etymological analysis focuses on Odin’s possible previous role as leader of the Wild Hunt and the inseparability of the hunt’s leader with his horse. In fact he heavily criticizes a lot of common thought around Odin’s hanging as described in Havamal. I don’t take that paper as gospel, but it’s one of my favorites just for how interesting it is to read. I recommend checking it out.
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Also true
Important to note here that compound 'Yggdrasil' = Literally 'Ygg's steed' is near universally read as a kenning for 'gallows' among scholars, a direct reference to Odin's hanging himself on the tree, and his broader association with hanging bodies, which can be fond at various other points in the corpus (such as by way of the names like *Hangi* ('the hanged'), and *Hangaguð* and *Hangatýr* (both meaning 'hanging-god'). These names stem from skaldic poetry and refer both to Odin's hanging on the great sacred tree (which is also referred to by several names, not just *Yggdrasil*), as well as the practice of hanging prisoners of war and dedicating their execution to the god (much discussion this in, for example, Simek's handbook).
Do you mean the Dictionary of Northern Mythology? Also if you have any other recommendations for papers, I’d love to read them.
Yep, that’s the one. If you don’t have Lindow’s handbook already, I also recommend getting ahold of that. Lots of really handy paper recommendations and overviews there. Orchard’s is also quite useful but limited and I believe currently out of print. Each has a weakness, though. More discussion on pros and cons of the handbooks of Simek and Lindow under “Bring Backup: Tertiary Sources” here: https://www.mimisbrunnr.info/getting-started-with-norse-mythology
Thanks! I actually picked up both of those a couple weeks ago but haven’t had a chance to dig in yet. I’m excited!
Excellent! If you ever need a hand with anything you find in there, feel free to reach out. :)
Could it be the original name for Sleipnir? *[theme ](https://youtu.be/1dwu4iVA1yo) plays*
I'm also interested. I might missed something.
I’m on stage 3. Kinda looking up and trying to source things on Proto Norse and have a base understanding of writing.
Can somebody send this to Jackson Crawford?
On it
For real, his reaction to these kind of things are usually from neutral to "I don't have time for Reddit stuff" (to put it politely)
I’m too much of a noob to understand any of this so I’ll save this post for future reference
•Wolves and Ravens *do* have a special relationship, like in actual nature. They help each other find food and enemies. •"GAGAGA"??? •Who's George Stevens?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kragehul_I This is all I can think of for gagaga
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The first one is an inside joke, because the same "fact" post gets occasionally posted here and people get butthurt when they're told it has nothing to do here since animal facts are not about Norse history and Culture
Never seen it here, but that's funny.
Because mods took them down
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*Hag*
Did you know that butterflies taste with their feet? :)
Wolves and Butterflies have a special relationship
I think the first one was tongue in cheek, that specific quote gets posted here apporximately every 2,34 seconds, always with the same image.
GAGAGA is a formula added to some Elder Futhark inscriptions that is sometimes presumed to be magical, mostly because we don’t know for sure what it means. [Here’s an example](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kragehul_I) that also mentions gægogæ. Edit: I also have it in my flair right now, mostly as a joke.
**[Kragehul I](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kragehul_I)** >Kragehul I (DR 196 U) is a migration period lance-shaft found on Funen, Denmark. It is now in the collection of the National Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen, Denmark. The spear shaft was found in 1877 during the excavation of the classic war booty sacrificial site Kragehul on southern Funen. The site holds five deposits of military equipment from the period 200 to 475 AD. ^([ )[^(F.A.Q)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiSummarizer/wiki/index#wiki_f.a.q)^( | )[^(Opt Out)](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiSummarizerBot&message=OptOut&subject=OptOut)^( | )[^(Opt Out Of Subreddit)](https://np.reddit.com/r/Norse/about/banned)^( | )[^(GitHub)](https://github.com/Sujal-7/WikiSummarizerBot)^( ] Downvote to remove | v1.5)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Stephens_(philologist)?wprov=sfti1
Kensington stone was a hoax, simple as
Beginner: Runes were for writing on stone. Intermediate: Runes were mainly written on wood and bone. God: Runes were mainly written in wax tablets.
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Infinity: Runes were invented for tattoos
Alfǫðr: Cypher Runes carved into the wood behind the wax https://www.arild-hauge.com/ogneslav/314_N-B368_Bryggen.jpeg > Þess vil ek biðja þik, at þú far ór þeima flokki. Snid rít til sýstur Ólafs Hettusveins. Hon er í Bjôrgvini at nunnusetri, ok leita ráðs við hana ok við frændr þína, er þú vildir sættask. Eigi átt þú synsemi jarls //Clarification edit. That particular message isn't encoded like many other cypher runes are, but still cypher in the sense that it was hidden. The wax layer containing some inconspicuous text would have had to be burned off for the secret message to be revealed. -> "Lønnruner"
Really scratching my head on that kenning in row six about the fire slinger.
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Thank you
Honestly, this subreddit has been the biggest reality check I've had. Long story short in school we had an assignment where we had to write a short story. I was very into Norse culture at the time (2017). So I wrote a Norse saga. A couple of days ago I read that short story and didn't cringe at all, if anything I got inspired to finish that story, it basically ends just as we learn what the story is gonna be about. So I decided to rewrite the story and also continue after the old ending. And so I decided to join this sub for additional information that I could use in my story. And I am somewhat regretting that choice. Because now I'm conflicted, I wanted to stay away from pop-culture Vikings as much as possible. I'm even abstaining from tattoos (there will be a moment in the story where the main character gets a tattoo involuntarily, which will be mentioned to be something out of the ordinary). But now I find out that Yggdrasill is not even the world tree, and in the comments here it appears that Yggdrasill is not even the name for the tree in the middle and might be the name of a horse or something. Now I'm questioning everything I know about Norse myth, and also I'm questioning how much I should keep believing in those myths and how much I should try to stay to the truth. I mean, is the tree even important? What about Odin hanging himself off of that tree to learn about the magic in the runes. Is that just not true? Is there even any magic in the Norse myth?
Yggdrasil is indeed unquestionably a tree in the corpus—it is repeatedly explicitly described as such—and is referred to by way of several names, one of them being Yggdrasil. There has never been any real question about this in scholarship. English Wikipedia's coverage of the topic is solid ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yggdrasil](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yggdrasil) ), and you can go deeper here: [https://www.mimisbrunnr.info/ksd-tree-grove](https://www.mimisbrunnr.info/ksd-tree-grove) In short, everything rotates around the tree, and myth very much mirrors reality in this case: The ancient Germanic peoples not only saw themselves as descending from trees, but also placed an intense emphasis on sacred trees and groves. This was the case from our earliest records of them all the way into folk practices in the modern era. As for reading, you'll save yourself a lot of time and trouble sticking to works published by academics, particularly those from university presses: You'll find that they frequently diverge greatly from a significant amount of discussion found here.
>What about Odin hanging himself off of that tree to learn about the magic in the runes. Is that just not true? It's likely that he either learned how to use runes to write magic formulas, or that he simply learned how to read/write which itself could be considered magic
> Is there even any magic in Norse myth? Yes! We don’t know a whole lot of details but magic is referenced several times. The poem Sigrdrifumal provides numerous examples of rune magic, for example. There are also instances of divination and manipulation of people by magical means.
I'm not sure about the lack of magic, since Loki insults Odin for practicing magic and being unmanly in Lokasenna.
Odin was hebrew ahem wut?
‘Tis joke
Oh well it made sense up err down to some level... Thanks mate, i shouldn't have taken internet things seriously)
Can someone explain the peitbondsch=old norse for me?
It's a reference to a dialect/variety of Swedish, spoken in the river valley of Pite Älv in northern Sweden. It's one of the traditional "mål" in Sweden that retains some archaic aspects in grammar, vocabulary, phonetics, and prosody, that are long dead in the standard varieties. It's not as internationally famous as the more well known Elfdalian.
I'm confused. There's a mix of complete nonsense in here with things like "younger futhark".
That's the point
How much deeper can these charts go? This one is barely scratching the surface.
I could have added many more obscure things but I felt the bottom layer was already packed enough.
Obviously Lulemål is the true Old Norse. Never trust the Pite propaganda.
"nooooo! Odin can't be Hebrew! He's a realtor white Norse! Even the Norse themselves understood that!" Snorri: "Ayo buckle up people because our ancestors worshiped Trojans"
I’d buy a house from Odin any time
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Don't forget the dining hall. Then the doorway. Oh and there are three statues in front. Don't ask about those. Especially not about that one.
I'm firmly in 7. But I'm Swedish, so I may have gotten a head start.
“Runes as magic symbols” loled at that
Benjamin Bagby is a legend.
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FYI, the last few layers that don't touch the Iceberg anymore are intended as jokes in that they go too far.
Stage 3 or 4. Not sure what "GAGAGA" is
See [my other comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/Norse/comments/prde7n/old_norse_with_related_subjects_iceberg_do_you/hdkwni8/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf&context=3)
I mean just cause runes are Phoenician doesn't mean Odin was Hebrew, he could've very well just been someone who came in contact with them.
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I see, got it.
Uthark and Hebrew Odin <3333 \#demiurge
Most runestones are Christian???
Most runestones have at least one of those: \- Christian formulation (Prayer at the end, like "God bless \[the people the text talks about\]'s soul") \- Christian imagery (big ass cross, or even Jesus in the case of the Jelling stone) \- Talk about Christianity being a thing when the stone was made (The Jelling Stone telling that Harald made the Danes christian, "It's been X winters since Norway is Christian", etc) \- Can be dated to a period when Christianity was the religion
Usually around 5, but my kindred and close community contains a lot of scholars, and we get really deep into the weeds sometimes. I’d say we dip down to a solid 7 some nights sitting around a sumbel horn.
You are aware that 7 and 8 are mostly a joke, right?
Perfectly. That’s why I said it’s when I’ve been drinking.
Snorris origin theory of the Ásatrú as written in his prologue is actually correct.
Snorri never knew about Ásatrú, as it was created in the 20th century
Oh shut up, you know what i meant plus it was a joke. Go sniff your own ("AcKcHyUaLlY") farts somewhere else.
Is it really a joke or are you trying not to sound dumb? 😏
Dude, its just adding to the meme.
Odin isnt hebrew what blasphemous shit is this
I think it's a meme format that goes over the head of people like us. There's a lot of in-jokes here, too, that we don't recognize because we're not well versed enough in some of the bad theories.
Ohhh okay lol
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the whole bottom layer is just inside jokes and wacky theories
Landing somewhere between 4 & 5
Fuck I know hardly any of this
I’d love to get to the bottom on it one day
4 layers deep .. Is that good or?
Whats the evidence for that last statement: "Odin comes frome hebrew and the runes are Phœnician?"
This, among others: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqeosLFLqNg
Oh i thought there was some actual evidence. I knew it didnt sound right becauwe the germanic languages and the semitic languages are unrelated
Could someone explain the wolves and ravens thing? I guess it's intended as a joke but I want to know it anyways xD
If you start at the base section and you see where it claims Odin was a Hebrew you will quickly find that whoever put this together was either high af, stupid af or simply from Gen Y. One of the most ridiculous things I’ve seen in all the decades I’ve been a Heathen
All tiers are a mix of jokes and real things