The gate of the year

Illustration from the Manuscript ÁM 738, Edda oblongata, of the XVII century, now in the Árni Magnússon Institute, Reykjavík, Iceland.
The representation shows the World Tree of Germanic cosmology, Yggdrasil, which is located at the centre of the world and constitutes the fundament of it. According to Sonorri’s Edda, the tree is an ash and around it the gods held their council every day. “The ash is of all trees best and biggest, it’s boughs are spread over the whole world, and stand above heaven; three roots of the tree hold it up and stand wide apart; one is with the Æsir, one is with the Hrímþursar [Frost Giants], there where aforetime was Ginnunga gap [the primeval void existing before the creation of the cosmos]; the third standeth over Niflheim [“Fog-World”, the world of the dead], and under that root is Hvergelmir [spring at the centre of the cosmos, from which all water courses had their origin], but Nídhhöggr [a dragon] gnaws the root beneath. But under the root that trendeth to the Hrímþursar, there is Mímir’s spring where knowledge and wit are hidden; and he that hath the spring hight Mímir, he is full of wisdom, for that he drinks of the spring from the horn Gjallarhorn [the “Screaming Horn”, which will be sounded by the god Heimdall on the day of the world’s end]” (Gylfaginning, 15). Under the ash tree, there was also a hall were three maidens lived, “who shaped the lives of men”: they are the Norns, those determining the destiny of men in the moment of their birth. According to Snorri, various varieties of Norns existed, belonging to the realm of the Æsir, of the Elf-people and of the Dwarves, and they could be both benevolent and malevolent (Gylfaginning, 15). On the tree an eagle was perched, while a squirrel run up and down along the trunk, four deer browse its leafs, and several snakes are at its base.
The tree extends over the three worlds, reaching with its roots the Underworld and with its foliage the heaven. The name Yggdrasil could be interpreted as “Odin’s horse” (from Ygg, “fearful”, an epithet of the god, and drasil, “mount”), with reference to the episode in which Odin remained hung to the tree, in a kind of self-sacrifice, to obtain knowledge and wisdom. It is a ritual comparable to those of the Siberian shamans, who, during an ecstatic trance, went up on a ceremonial tree representing symbolically the World Tree (Eliade 1951, p. 219).
At the time of the origins of the world, after the earth had been created from the body of the giant Ymir, Odin and his two brothers went along a beach and found two trees, gathered them and made two human beings out of them, giving them life, movement and capacity of perception. The man was called Ask [Ash tree] and the woman Embla [perhaps “Elm tree”], and from them “was the kind of men begotten, to whom an abode was given” on the earth (Gylfaginning, 9). Humankind itself, thus, derived, according to Norse mythology, from the plant world, and the first human beings had been created from two trees.

[Image: http://bifrost.it/GERMANI/Schedario/Yggdrasill.html




Tree Symbols

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Illustration from the Manuscript ÁM 738, Edda oblongata, of the XVII century, now in the Árni Magnússon Institute, Reykjavík, Iceland. The representation shows the World Tree of Germanic cosmology, Yggdrasil, which is located at the centre of the world and constitutes the fundament of it. According to Sonorri’s Edda, the tree is an ash and around it the gods held their council every day. “The ash is of all trees best and biggest, it’s boughs are spread over the whole world, and stand above heaven; three roots of the tree hold it up and stand wide apart; one is with the Æsir, one is with the Hrímþursar [Frost Giants], there where aforetime was Ginnunga gap [the primeval void existing before the creation of the cosmos]; the third standeth over Niflheim [“Fog-World”, the world of the dead], and under that root is Hvergelmir [spring at the centre of the cosmos, from which all water courses had their origin], but Nídhhöggr [a dragon] gnaws the root beneath. But under the root that trendeth to the Hrímþursar, there is Mímir’s spring where knowledge and wit are hidden; and he that hath the spring hight Mímir, he is full of wisdom, for that he drinks of the spring from the horn Gjallarhorn [the “Screaming Horn”, which will be sounded by the god Heimdall on the day of the world’s end]” (Gylfaginning, 15). Under the ash tree, there was also a hall were three maidens lived, “who shaped the lives of men”: they are the Norns, those determining the destiny of men in the moment of their birth. According to Snorri, various varieties of Norns existed, belonging to the realm of the Æsir, of the Elf-people and of the Dwarves, and they could be both benevolent and malevolent (Gylfaginning, 15). On the tree an eagle was perched, while a squirrel run up and down along the trunk, four deer browse its leafs, and several snakes are at its base. The tree extends over the three worlds, reaching with its roots the Underworld and with its foliage the heaven. The name Yggdrasil could be interpreted as “Odin’s horse” (from Ygg, “fearful”, an epithet of the god, and drasil, “mount”), with reference to the episode in which Odin remained hung to the tree, in a kind of self-sacrifice, to obtain knowledge and wisdom. It is a ritual comparable to those of the Siberian shamans, who, during an ecstatic trance, went up on a ceremonial tree representing symbolically the World Tree (Eliade 1951, p. 219). At the time of the origins of the world, after the earth had been created from the body of the giant Ymir, Odin and his two brothers went along a beach and found two trees, gathered them and made two human beings out of them, giving them life, movement and capacity of perception. The man was called Ask [Ash tree] and the woman Embla [perhaps “Elm tree”], and from them “was the kind of men begotten, to whom an abode was given” on the earth (Gylfaginning, 9). Humankind itself, thus, derived, according to Norse mythology, from the plant world, and the first human beings had been created from two trees. [Image: http://bifrost.it/GERMANI/Schedario/Yggdrasill.html