The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Yggdrasill

YGGDRASILL, or YGDRASIL, ĭg'dră-sĭl, in Scandinavian mythology, the giant ash tree overspreading the whole world and reaching above the heavens. It binds together earth, heaven and hell, and its roots stretch out to the Asa or Æsir gods in heaven, to the frost and to the under world. A marvelous fountain springs up under each of these three great roots and in the tree, whose boughs drip continually with honey, dwell an eagle and the squirrel Ratatöskr. At its roots the serpent Nithöggr gnaws, and between the serpent and the eagle runs the squirrel constantly endeavoring to provoke the two to strife. Certain writers detect in this myth a distortion of the story of the Cross, but the translator of Grimm says, “it were a far likelier theory, that floating heathen traditions of the world tree, soon after the conversion in Germany, France or England, attached themselves to an object of Christian faith just as heathen temples and holy places were converted into Christian ones.”