How the world was arranged
A tree at the center. An ash tree connecting all the worlds, with roots reaching down to springs and branches holding up the sky.
The land of humans. The inhabited middle, surrounded by the sea. A fence made from the remains of the first giant keeps out intruders from beyond.
The lands of others. The world of the gods above, the world of giants beyond the fence, and the world of the dead below. A bridge seen as a rainbow connects them.
A serpent in the sea. Around the inhabited land lies a serpent biting its own tail. When it lets go of its tail, the end of the world will begin.
The second point explains the phrase “middle world.” People live neither above nor below, but in between, in an enclosed area beyond which lies the unfamiliar and dangerous.
This arrangement fits the experience of people who lived on the coast. Familiar land, then water without end, then the unknown beyond the water - the map of the myth repeats the map of a real voyage.
How we know this
The main source is the writings of a 13th-century Icelandic author, recorded 200 years after the conversion to Christianity. He collected and organized old songs, and it is quite possible that the orderly scheme of nine worlds was his own arrangement, not a shared belief.
Earlier evidence - individual songs, inscriptions on stones, and archaeological finds - gives a more varied picture. The names and roles differ, and no unified system can be seen at all.
This is a common problem with oral traditions. Someone always records them later, with their own purpose, and it is usually impossible to separate what was original from the order imposed during the recording.
Modern retellings also call for caution. Much of what is considered ancient today was added in the 19th century or came from books and films of recent decades.
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Sources
- The main information about the Norse view of the world comes from Icelandic texts of the 13th century, recorded about two centuries after Christianization
- earlier sources offer a less systematized picture, making it difficult to separate original ideas from later systematization