For the Norse, Yggdrasil was their world(s) tree. That’s right, world(s)—because they conceived their cosmos as having 9 worlds, not just 1. This raid therefore aims to plunder the heart of their cosmos to better understand Yggdrasil’s role and its symbolism in the Norse world(s)view. We won’t talk about everything (like Odin’s well-known sacrifice upon it), but I’m sure you’ll still leave this raid with some plunder you didn’t have before.
🌟 Featured Object: AM 738 4to, 43r
📚 Sources & Further Reading:
- Snorri Sturluson, Edda, translated by Anthony Faulkes (Everyman, 1995)
- Jackson Crawford trans., The Poetic Edda (Hackett Publishing, 2015)
- Neil Price, Children of Ash and Elm: A History of the Vikings (Basic Books, 2020)
- Neil Price, The Viking Way: Magic and Mind in Late Iron Age Scandinavia (Oxbow Books, 2019)
- Anders Andrén, Tracing Old Norse Cosmology: The World Tree, Middle Earth, and the Sun from Archaeological Perspectives (Nordic Academic Press, 2014)
📖 Like fantasy stories set in a world with a deep, rich history? Yes, there’s always Tolkien…but check out fjörn’s free web novel (written under his other pen name, fëolnir) at feolnir.com!
🎵 = “Firesong” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
Leave a Reply