Yggdrasil - the world tree

original steem

The tree has under the viking age and in the protestant north had a central role in the symbolic description of the spiritual, the living and the authentic. Related terms such as roots, rootlessness and family tree live on today in our language, these terms are important when it comes to heritage, identity and traditions.

The norse world tree Yggdrasil symbolizes life, the chronological inheritance from generation to generation, the individual human being is the stem where the forefathers are the roots and the future descendants are the crown of the tree.

But the powerful world tree has and will always be victim to attacks. By the roots of the worlds tree gnaws Nidhogg(the dragon of ragnarok) with other dragons. All of them want to cut through the trees roots and separate the tree crown from its nourishment. Power is what they strive for and the results of these attacks are rootlessness and fragmentation.

In christianity the tree is more inconspicuous, but it still has symbolic value, it is most important in the story of the garden of eden. Adam and Eve were tempted to eat the fruit of knowledge about good and evil, they had been offered this by the snake and they ate the juicy delicacy. This god didn't like this since he foresaw that once the humans had eaten of the tree of knowledge they would shortly thereafter eat of the tree of life. They would never be happy without pillaging the forest, fishing out all the ocean and poisoning the Earth. The humans had listened to the snakes cleaved tongue, they had now knowledge of good and evil and they had chosen the left hand path. This would not go without punishment when short sighted choices most often hollow out the long term and sustainable.

When Tolkien took his walks on Oxfords gravel roads he saw the old oaks as his friends and gave them names. Stories about trees recur in modern works such as Avatar, Game of Thrones and Lord of The Rings which got inspiration from our forefathers observations and theorizing.

#osc

for grammar errors(i'm Norwegian) check out:
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