YGGDRASIL: NINE WORLDS, GODS, AND RUNES

The Northern Myth Mosaic: Sources, Method, and Limits of Knowledge

Scandinavian mythology in modern culture is surrounded by an aura of monolithicity and severity

Romanticism. The image of a flawlessly constructed universe easily emerges in the mass consciousness:

the giant ash tree Yggdrasil, on the branches of which nine separate worlds are strictly ordered; warriors,

feasting in Valhalla; the noble Aesir led by the all-seeing Odin and the invincible Thor; and,

Finally, runes are mysterious signs that are often attributed to a centuries-old magical system

fortune telling.

However, the reality of historical tradition is structured differently – more complex, paradoxical and incomparable

more exciting.

Old Norse paganism did not know sacred canonical books, a single set of dogmas or

centralized priestly hierarchy. What we today call "Scandinavian mythology"

represents a collection of regional cults, oral traditions, ritual practices and

poetic formulas that have existed for centuries over a vast territory from Norway and

From Sweden to Denmark, Iceland, Britain and Greenland.