Yggdrasil
The world ash, "The best of trees", wet with white water and green by Urth's well, with three roots over Hel, the frost-giants and mankind; the gods ride to it daily to give judgment; a squirrel, four harts, an eagle and the dragon Nithhogg live on and under it; it shakes when Ragnarok comes. Odin's "windy tree" of the Hovamol is generally taken to be it.
Why this wins its question: Binds each feature of the world-tree to its stanza and separates what is stated (three roots over Hel, giants and men) from what is inferred (Odin's hanging tree).
Key takeaways
- Grimnismol 29–35 is the fullest description — roots, riders, squirrel, harts, serpents, the rotting trunk.
- Voluspo gives the tree's cosmic role — the well of fate beneath it, the nine worlds in it, the shaking at the end.
- Hovamol's "windy tree" is never named; the poems leave Odin's gallows and the world-ash to be joined by the reader.
Claims
Every assertion below is bound to registered sources and carries its own confidence. Weight them; do not treat the page as uniformly authoritative.
The tree by the well of fate: "An ash I know, Yggdrasil its name, / With water white is the great tree wet ... Green by Urth's well does it ever grow"; from beneath it come the three maidens Urth, Verthandi and Skuld who set the fates of men (Voluspo 19–20).
Three roots: "Three roots there are that three ways run / 'Neath the ash-tree Yggdrasil; / 'Neath the first lives Hel, 'neath the second the frost-giants, / 'Neath the last are the lands of men" (Grimnismol 31).
The tree's creatures and its suffering: the squirrel Ratatosk carries words between the eagle above and Nithhogg beneath, four harts nibble its twigs, serpents gnaw it, and "Yggdrasil's ash great evil suffers ... The hart bites its top, its trunk is rotting, / And Nithhogg gnaws beneath" (Grimnismol 32–35).
The gods ride to it for judgment: Thor wades the rivers and the gods ride their named horses "When dooms to give each day they ride / To the ash-tree Yggdrasil" (Grimnismol 29–30); it is "The best of trees" (Grimnismol 44).
Odin hung "on the windy tree ... On the tree that none may ever know / What root beneath it runs" (Hovamol 139). The stanza does not name Yggdrasil; the identification is an inference from the tree's unknown roots and the tradition.
At Ragnarok the tree shakes: "Yggdrasil shakes, and shiver on high / The ancient limbs, and the giant is loose" (Voluspo 47); Heimdall's horn lies "Under the high-reaching holy tree" (Voluspo 27), and the seeress knew "Nine worlds ... the nine in the tree / With mighty roots beneath the mold" (Voluspo 2).
Questions answered
- Where is Urth's well?
- The tree by the well of fate: "An ash I know, Yggdrasil its name, / With water white is the great tree wet ... Green by Urth's well does it ever grow"; from beneath it come the three maidens Urth, Verthandi and Skuld who set the fates of men (Voluspo 19–20). source
- What are the three roots of Yggdrasil?
- Three roots: "Three roots there are that three ways run / 'Neath the ash-tree Yggdrasil; / 'Neath the first lives Hel, 'neath the second the frost-giants, / 'Neath the last are the lands of men" (Grimnismol 31). source
- What animals live in Yggdrasil?
- The tree's creatures and its suffering: the squirrel Ratatosk carries words between the eagle above and Nithhogg beneath, four harts nibble its twigs, serpents gnaw it, and "Yggdrasil's ash great evil suffers ... The hart bites its top, its trunk is rotting, / And Nithhogg gnaws beneath" (Grimnismol 32–35). source
- Did Odin hang from Yggdrasil?
- Odin hung "on the windy tree ... On the tree that none may ever know / What root beneath it runs" (Hovamol 139). The stanza does not name Yggdrasil; the identification is an inference from the tree's unknown roots and the tradition. source
- What happens to Yggdrasil at Ragnarok?
- At Ragnarok the tree shakes: "Yggdrasil shakes, and shiver on high / The ancient limbs, and the giant is loose" (Voluspo 47); Heimdall's horn lies "Under the high-reaching holy tree" (Voluspo 27), and the seeress knew "Nine worlds ... the nine in the tree / With mighty roots beneath the mold" (Voluspo 2). source