RICHARD FOLKARD, JUN. Plant Lore, Legends and Lyrics. London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, and Rivington,
Crown Buildings, 188, Fleet Street, 1884.
Crown Buildings, 188, Fleet Street, 1884.
The Norse World-Tree.
According to the Eddaic accounts, the Ash Yggdrasill is the
greatest and best of all trees. One of its stems springs from the
central primordial abyss—from the subterranean source of matter—runs
up through the earth, which it supports, and issuing out of
the celestial mountain in the world’s centre, called Asgard, spreads
its branches over the entire universe. These wide-spread branches
are the æthereal or celestial regions; their leaves, the clouds; their
buds or fruits, the stars. Four harts run across the branches of
the tree, and bite the buds: these are the four cardinal winds.
Perched upon the top branches is an eagle, and between his eyes
sits a hawk: the eagle symbolises the air, the hawk the wind-still
æther. A squirrel runs up and down the Ash, and seeks to cause
strife between the eagle and Nidhögg, a monster, which is constantly
gnawing the roots: the squirrel signifies hail and other
atmospherical phenomena; Nidhögg and the serpents that gnaw the
roots of the mundane tree are the volcanic agencies which are
constantly seeking to destroy earth’s foundations. Another stem
springs in the warm south over the æthereal Urdar fountain, where
the gods sit in judgment. In this fountain swim two swans, the
progenitors of all that species: these swans are, by Finn
Magnusen, supposed to typify the sun and moon. Near this
fountain dwell three maidens, who fix the lifetime of all men, and
are called Norns: every day they draw water from the spring, and
with it sprinkle the Ash in order that its branches may not rot
and wither away. This water is so holy, that everything placed
in the spring becomes as white as the film within an egg-shell.
The dew that falls from the tree on the earth men call honey-dew,
and it is the food of the bees. The third stem of Yggdrasill takes
its rise in the cold and cheerless regions of the north (the land of
the Frost Giants), over the source of the ocean, typified by a
spring called Mimir’s Well, in which wisdom and wit lie hidden.
Mimir, the owner of this spring, is full of wisdom because he drinks
of its waters. One day Odin came and begged a draught of water
from the well, which he obtained, but was obliged to leave one of
his eyes as a pledge for it. This myth Finn Magnusen thinks
signifies the descent of the sun every evening into the sea (to learn
wisdom from Mimir during the night); the mead quaffed by Mimir
every morning being the ruddy dawn, that, spreading over the sky,
exhilarates all nature.
RICHARD FOLKARD, JUN.
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