Extended yggdrasil and odin article Three Norns spinning at yggdrasil In Norse mythology Yggdrasil from Old Norse Yggdrasill pronounced is an immense tree that is central in Norse cosmology It was said to be the world tree around which the nine worlds existed Its name is generally considered to mean Ygg s Odin s horse Yggdrasil is attested in the Poetic Edda compiled in the 13th century from earlier traditional sources and the Prose Edda written in the 13th century by Snorri Sturluson In both sources Yggdrasil is an immense ash tree that is central and considered very holy The gods go to Yggdrasil daily to hold their courts The branches of Yggdrasil extend far into the heavens and the tree is supported by three roots that extend far away into other locations one to the well Ur arbrunnr in the heavens one to the spring Hvergelmir and another to the well M misbrunnr Creatures live within Yggdrasil including the wyrm dragon N h ggr an unnamed eagle and the stags D inn Dvalinn Duneyrr and Dura r r Conflicting scholarly theories have been proposed about the etymology of the name Yggdrasill the possibility that the tree is of another species than ash the relation to tree lore and to Eurasian shamanic lore the possible relation to the trees M mamei r and L ra r Hoddm mis hnolt the sacred tree at Uppsala and the fate of Yggdrasil during the events of Ragnar k Terminology The generally accepted meaning of Old Norse Yggdrasill is Odin s horse This conclusion is drawn on the basis that drasill means horse and Ygg r is one of Odin s many names The Poetic Edda poem H vam l describes how Odin sacrificed himself to himself by hanging from a tree making this tree Odin s gallows This tree may have been Yggdrasil Gallows can be called the horse of the hanged and therefore Odin s gallows may have developed into the expression Odin s horse which then became the name of the tree Simek 2007 375 Nevertheless scholarly opinions regarding the precise meaning of the name Yggdrasill vary particularly on the issue of whether Yggdrasill is the name of the tree itself In the Prose Edda the tree is usually not just called Yggdrasil but askr Yggdrasils Old Norse askr means ash tree and according to the inflectional system of Icelandic language askr Yggdrasils means Yggdrasill s ash Icelandic has the best preserved inflectional system of the Norse languages and the Prose Edda was also written in old Icelandic These etymologies do though rely on a presumed but unattested Yggsdrasill A third interpretation presented by F Detter is that the name Yggdrasill refers to the word yggr terror yet not in reference to the Odinic name but rather as Yggdrasill as the tree of terror gallows F R Schr der has proposed a fourth etymology according to which yggdrasill means yew pillar deriving yggia from igwja meaning yew tree and drasill from dher meaning support Attestations Poetic Edda In the Poetic Edda the tree is mentioned in the three poems V lusp H vam l and Gr mnism l V lusp In the second stanza of the Poetic Edda poem V lusp the v lva a shamanic seeress reciting the poem to the god Odin says that she remembers far back to early times being raised by j tnar recalls nine worlds and nine wood ogresses Old Norse n o di iur and when Yggdrasil was a seed glorious tree of good measure under the ground Dronke 1997 7 In stanza 19 the v lva says An ash I know there stands Yggdrasill is its name a tall tree showered with shining loam