World tree

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The world tree is a motif present in several Indo-European religions, such as Yggdrasil or Irminsul, in Norse mythology, an Oak in Slavic mythology, and in Hinduism, a banyan tree.

The world tree is also represented in the mythologies and folklore of Northern Asia and Siberia. In the mythology of the Samoyeds, the 'world tree' connects different realities (underworld, this world, upper world) together. In their mythology 'world tree' is also the symbol of Mother Earth who is said to give the samoyed shaman his drum and also help him travel from one world to another.

Although the concept is absent from the Greek mythology, medieval Greek folk traditions and more recent ones claim that the Tree that holds the Earth is being sawed by Kallikantzaroi (commonly translated as goblins).

A World Tree or Wacah Chan also appears in the Mayan religion (known as the Mayan Sacred Tree) or axis mundi. It connects the Middleworld of man, with Xibalba (Otherworld) and the heavens (Schele & Friedle, 1990). The tree is one of the most sacred of Maya symbols and is often depicted as being burned at the bottom, while growing at the top.

Norse Mythology's Yggdrasill also shows the tree as a tree on the Earth, a giant taproot in the under world, and boughs in the heavens. The taproot is said to be the shaft of Thor's hammer, Mjolnir. The Nidhogg, who lives at the centre of the Earth, is a giant serpent. The serpent is always bickering with the eagle that houses in the top of the tree. Nidhogg lies on Nastrond in Niflheim and eats corpses to sustain itself. It is not the only serpent whose task it is to destroy the World Tree; other serpents include Graback, Grafvolluth, Goin and Moin, eat the trees roots, while telling bad words to a little red squirrel (Ratatosk), who in turn tells them to mankind.

There is an extensive book on the world tree and the axis mundi tracing all possible mythological sources and meeting scientific demands: Santillana, Giorgio de & Dechend, Hertha von: Hamlet's Mill. Gambit, Boston 1969

Some similarities are to be found in the Kabbalan Sefirot or The Tree of Life