The location of the other realms remains the subject of considerable debate.
This passage indicates that the roots of Yggdrasil extended into the realm of the Aesir (Asgard), as well as Jotunheim, the world of the giants, and frozen Niflheim. Three roots of the tree uphold it and stand exceeding broad: one is among the Æsir another among the Rime-Giants, in that place where aforetime was the Yawning Void the third stands over Niflheim.’ 2 ‘The Ash is greatest of all trees and best: its limbs spread out over all the world and stand above heaven. Though the architecture of the tree and the locations of its realms remain shrouded in mystery, Snorri Sturluson’s Gylfaginning offers some clues: Then they took the glowing embers and sparks that burst forth and had been cast out of Múspellheim, and set them in the midst of the Yawning Void, in the heaven, both above and below, to illumine heaven and earth.’ 1 # Yggdrasilĭuring this time, the mighty ash tree Yggdrasil grew amidst creation and connected the Nine Realms. They took his skull also, and made of it the heaven, and set it up over the earth with four corners and under each corner they set a dwarf: the names of these are East, West, North, and South. Of the blood, which ran and welled forth freely out of his wounds, they made the sea. ‘They took Ymir and bore him into the middle of the Yawning Void, and made of him the earth: of his blood the sea and the waters the land was made of his flesh, and the crags of his bones gravel and stones they fashioned from his teeth and his grinders and from those bones that were broken. His lifeless body became the building material for other realms, which the young gods built in the midst of Ginnungagap: Buri’s children would ultimately go on to slay the cruel Ymir. The melting ice also revealed Audumla, a cow who nursed Ymir and fed on the salty ice.Īudumla’s voracious licking eventually revealed Buri, the progenitor of the Aesir tribe and grandfather of Odin. The vapors coalesced into cruel Ymir, the first of the giants. As time wore on, the two opposing worlds encroached upon one another, until the fires of Muspelheim began to melt Niflheim’s frost. During this embryonic stage, the universe held just two realms: Muspelheim, the primordial realm of heat and flame, and Niflheim, the primordial realm of cold and frost.
# Mythology, Part I: Origins # CreationĪccording to Norse creation myths, the yawning void called Ginnungagap once dominated all creation. Asgard and Midgard were connected via the great rainbow bridge known as the Bifrost, making it possible for deities to influence the humans who adored and abhorred them in equal measure.
Intrepid travelers, both mortal and divine, could and did traverse the liminal spaces between worlds. Though the realms were distinct from one another, their boundaries were surprisingly porous. Their position within Yggdrasil determined both their core characteristics and their connections to other realms. The Nine Realms hung on the branches, or else grew from the roots and bole of Yggdrasil, the world tree, which gave structure and form to the cosmos. These realms were Asgard, the near-perfect home of the Aesir deities Jotunheim, the fallen world of the monstrous jötunn Midgard, the land of humans Alfheim, home of the elves Hel, a resting place for the dead Vanaheim, the world of the magical Vanir deities Nidavellir, the subterranean realm of the dwarves Niflheim, a frigid land of ice and snow and Muspelheim, a realm of heat and flame. While gods such as Odin and Thor traveled between the Nine Realms frequently, mortals generally had to wait until after death to see a realm other than Midgard.Īccording to Norse cosmology, the known universe was composed of Nine Realms.
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