Mímameiðr

20. Tell me, Fiolsvith! etc., what that tree is called that with its branches spreads itself over every land?

21. Mimameidir it is called; but few men know from what roots it springs: it by that will fall which fewest know. Nor fire nor iron will harm it.

In Fjölsvinnsmál a visitor questions the guardian Fjölsviðr and asks the name of a tree whose branches spread over every land. The answer is Mímameiðr. Few know from what roots it springs, and it will fall by something few know. Neither fire nor iron harms it. Its fruit is laid on a fire for women in labour so that what should come out does, which the poem calls making it a creator of mankind.

A bird, Víðófnir, sits in its boughs. The poem does not say that the tree is Yggdrasill, and it does not mention Odin, the Norns or the well that other poems link with the world tree.

The name is usually read as “Mímir’s tree” or “Mímir’s beam”, from the name Mímir and meiðr, a tree or pole. Some scholars suggest it is another name for Yggdrasill, since both are great trees that cover the world and Yggdrasill is linked elsewhere with Mímir’s well. Others hold that the poem describes a different tree, since it uses none of Yggdrasill’s usual names and gives its fruit a role in childbirth.

The question cannot be settled from the text alone.