The Making of the Worlds

How do the old accounts picture the beginning: ice and fire meeting in an empty gap, a tree that holds everything, a middle enclosure made for people? This trail follows that picture through twelve entries: nine places from the Yggdrasil map, two runes and one tarot card.

The sources do not tell one story. Snorri’s Gylfaginning gives the fullest account of ice meeting fire, the poems say less and sometimes something different, and the entries point out where they disagree. The runes and the card are this site’s modern readings, set beside the old accounts for reflection. The Eddic places come from the Poetic Edda and Snorri as given on each page. The connections are editorial choices made for this site, not a claim that the old sources formed one system.