Lørenz Frolich’s “The Ash Yggdrasil”, illustration from Wilhelm Wägner’s Asgard and the Gods (1886).
Featured on PDR in the collection Yggdrasil: The Sacred Ash Tree of Norse Mythology
With its branches in the heavens and its roots in the underworld, the Cosmic Tree is a common feature of religions and mythologies around the globe. Stories of such trees have been recorded in the Americas, Asia, India, Africa, the Middle East, and Europe — and while the species and specifics may vary from place to place, one thing almost always hold true: the Cosmic Tree is central to the structure of the universe.