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ÝDALIR (“Yew-dales”): The place where the god Ullr lives.

YGGDRASILL (“Yggr’s Steed,” Yggr being Odin): This is the cosmic tree, the “ideogram of Scandinavian mythology” (Mircea Eliade). It corresponds to the Skambha, the cosmic pillar of the Vedas, to the Saxon Irminsûl, and to the World Tree of the Sámi people in Lappland. It is also called Læraðr and Mímameiðr (“Mímir’s Tree”). It is an ash tree, the center and support of the world that it summarizes and symbolizes, the source of life and all knowledge, and all fate. Neither fire nor steel can scathe it, and its fruits heal the womb ailments of women.

Living beneath its three roots are men, frost giants, and the dead in Hel’s realm. According to one tradition, one of its roots leads to the world of the Æsir in the sky. This is where the springs of Urðr (a Norn), Mímir (a giant), and Hvergelmir (the source of all rivers) are located. The dragon Niðhöggr also lives here. The second root goes to Jötunheimr, the world of the giants, and the third to Niflheimr, the world of the dead.

An eagle perches at its top. This is most likely Hræsvelgr (“Carrion Eater”), the flapping of whose wings gives birth to the winds—as well as the falcon Veðrfölnir (“Ash Covered by the Wind”?). The squirrel Ratatoskr climbs up and down the trunk. Five stags graze on its branches: Dáinn and Dvalinn (“Death” and “Torpid”; these are also dwarf names), Duneyrr (“Downy Ears”), and Duraþrór and Eikþyrnir (“Oak-thorny”), as well as the goat Heiðrún. Eight reptiles gnaw on its roots: Niðhöggr, Góinn, Móinn, Grafvitnir, Grafvölluðr, Grábakr, Ófnir, and Sváfnir (we may note in passing that alliterations are generally a sign of the antiquity of the elements). Each day the Norns sprinkle water and light clay over Yggdrasill. The Æsir customarily hold their deliberations beneath the cosmic tree near Urðr’s fountain.

Yggdrasill ensures the vertical coherence of the world, while the Midgard Serpent guarantees its horizontal coherence.

Régis Boyer, “Yggdrasill,” Pris-Ma 5 (1989): 127–38; Hjalmar Lindroth, “Yggdrasils ‘barr’ och eviga grönska: En replik,” Arkiv för nordisk filologi 30 (1914): 218–26.

YGGR (“Fearsome One”): One of Odin’s bynames.

Falk, Odensheiti.

YMIR (“Hybrid,” “Hermaphrodite”; cf. Sanskrit Yama): Name of the primordial giant whose dismembered body formed the world. He was born from melting ice and is the ancestor of the frost giants, who also call him Aurgelmir. While he slept he began perspiring, and a man and woman were born from his left armpit; one of his feet engendered a son with the other one. Ymir fed on the milk of the cow Auðumla, who was also born from the melting ice.

Odin, Vili, and Vé killed him, and all the frost giants drowned in his blood except for Bergelmir and his wife. The three gods next took Ymir and placed him in the middle of Ginnungagap (“Gaping Void”); they created the Earth from him. From his blood they made the sea and lakes; from his flesh they made the land, and from his bones the mountains; stones and scree were made from his broken teeth and bones. They also took his skull and used it to form the sky above the Earth and placed it on four corners that were held up by four dwarves. To build Miðgarðr (“The World of Men”). They used Ymir’s eyelashes; they created the clouds from his brains.

Régis Boyer, “Le corps d’ymir,” Germanica 4 (1988): 11–25; Olivier Gouchet, “Le sang d’ymir,” Études Germaniques 44 (1989): 385–95.

YNGVI: A byname of the god Freyr, from whom the royal family of Sweden (the Ynglingar of the ninth to fourteenth centuries) descends. It is thought that Yngvi corresponds to the eponymous god of the Ingaevones about which Tacitus speaks.