{
  "id": "nine-worlds",
  "type": "entity",
  "name": "The nine worlds",
  "summary": "The Norse cosmos as the Poetic Edda names it: \"Nine worlds I knew, the nine in the tree\", says the seeress, and the giant Vafthruthnir has been \"To nine worlds ... to Niflhel beneath\". The poems never list the nine; they name Mithgarth, Jotunheim, Alfheim, Niflhel and Hel, and Alvissmol speaks of the separate tongues of men, gods, Vanir, giants, elves, dwarfs and the dead.",
  "locale": "en",
  "tags": [
    "norse",
    "cosmology",
    "concepts",
    "places"
  ],
  "relations": [
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "yggdrasil"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "hel"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "ymir"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "odin"
    },
    {
      "rel": "attested_in",
      "target": "poetic-edda"
    },
    {
      "rel": "discussed_in",
      "target": "creation-myths-compared"
    }
  ],
  "questions": [
    "What are the nine worlds of Norse mythology?",
    "Does the Poetic Edda list the nine worlds?",
    "What is Midgard?",
    "What is Jotunheim?",
    "What is Niflhel?",
    "Where is Alfheim?"
  ],
  "claims": [
    {
      "id": "c1",
      "text": "The number is attested twice, the list never: \"Nine worlds I knew, the nine in the tree / With mighty roots beneath the mold\" (Voluspo 2); \"To nine worlds came I, to Niflhel beneath, / The home where dead men dwell\" (Vafthruthnismol 43). No stanza in Bellows's text enumerates them.",
      "sources": [
        "poetic-edda-bellows"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.93
    },
    {
      "id": "c2",
      "text": "Mithgarth is the world the gods made for men: \"Bur's sons lifted the level land, / Mithgarth the mighty there they made\" (Voluspo 4); \"Mithgarth the gods from his eyebrows made, / And set for the sons of men\" (Grimnismol 41); Odin's ravens fly \"O'er Mithgarth\" (Grimnismol 20).",
      "sources": [
        "poetic-edda-bellows"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.95
    },
    {
      "id": "c3",
      "text": "Jotunheim is the giants' land: giant-maids come \"out of Jotunheim\" (Voluspo 8), \"All Jotunheim groans\" at Ragnarok (Voluspo 48), and Thor \"sought Jotunheim\" in his bridal disguise (Thrymskvitha 21).",
      "sources": [
        "poetic-edda-bellows"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.95
    },
    {
      "id": "c4",
      "text": "Alfheim, Hel and Niflhel: \"Alfheim the gods to Freyr once gave / As a tooth-gift\" (Grimnismol 5); Hel lies under the first root of the tree (Grimnismol 31); Odin rides \"down to Niflhel deep\" (Baldrs draumar 2).",
      "sources": [
        "poetic-edda-bellows"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.93
    },
    {
      "id": "c5",
      "text": "Alvissmol's catalogue divides the cosmos by its speakers rather than its places: each thing has a name among men, the gods, the Vanir (\"the Wanes\"), the giants, the elves, the dwarfs and \"in hell\", as for heaven (Alvissmol 11–12), the moon (13–14) and fire (25–26).",
      "sources": [
        "poetic-edda-bellows"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.9
    }
  ],
  "takeaways": [
    "\"Nine\" is the poems' number (Voluspo 2; Vafthruthnismol 43); the familiar list of nine names is a modern reconstruction.",
    "The worlds the poems do name are Mithgarth, Jotunheim, Alfheim, Hel and Niflhel; Asgard appears as \"Asgarth\" (Thrymskvitha 17; Hymiskvitha 7).",
    "Alvissmol's seven kinds of speakers are the nearest the Poetic Edda comes to a map of who lives where."
  ],
  "faqs": [
    {
      "q": "Does the Poetic Edda list the nine worlds?",
      "claim": "c1"
    },
    {
      "q": "What is Midgard?",
      "claim": "c2"
    },
    {
      "q": "What is Jotunheim?",
      "claim": "c3"
    },
    {
      "q": "What is Niflhel?",
      "claim": "c4"
    },
    {
      "q": "Where is Alfheim?",
      "claim": "c4"
    }
  ],
  "evidence_tier": "primary",
  "evidence": {
    "level": "theoretical",
    "source_types": [
      "paper"
    ]
  },
  "moat_flag": false,
  "winning_edge": "Answers \"what are the nine worlds?\" with what the poems actually say — a number and a handful of names — and marks the standard list as reconstruction rather than quotation.",
  "confidence": 0.92,
  "last_verified": "2026-09-03",
  "media": [],
  "x": {
    "myth": {
      "pantheon": "norse",
      "kind": "concept",
      "domains": [
        "cosmology"
      ],
      "wikidata": "Q1798538"
    }
  },
  "canonical_url": "https://mythosdata.dev/k/nine-worlds",
  "api_url": "https://mythosdata.dev/api/k/nine-worlds.json",
  "jsonld": {
    "@context": "https://schema.org",
    "name": "The nine worlds",
    "description": "The Norse cosmos as the Poetic Edda names it: \"Nine worlds I knew, the nine in the tree\", says the seeress, and the giant Vafthruthnir has been \"To nine worlds ... to Niflhel beneath\". The poems never list the nine; they name Mithgarth, Jotunheim, Alfheim, Niflhel and Hel, and Alvissmol speaks of the separate tongues of men, gods, Vanir, giants, elves, dwarfs and the dead.",
    "url": "https://mythosdata.dev/k/nine-worlds",
    "license": "https://spdx.org/licenses/CC-BY-4.0.html",
    "dateModified": "2026-09-03",
    "citation": [
      {
        "@type": "CreativeWork",
        "name": "The Poetic Edda — tr. Henry Adams Bellows (American-Scandinavian Foundation, 1923), XML edition by fjarri",
        "url": "https://github.com/fjarri/poetic_edda/tree/master/chapters"
      }
    ],
    "@type": "Article",
    "headline": "The nine worlds"
  }
}