The tree as cosmic connection
In Eddic texts Yggdrasill connects divine, human, and other realms. Sources mention roots, wells, and beings around the tree, but do not agree in every detail.
Roots, wells and beings
The familiar tidy map of “nine worlds” is largely a modern systematisation. Texts mention nine worlds but provide no single consistent list with fixed positions.
The problematic nine worlds
It is more useful to read the cosmology as a network of relationships: inside and outside, order and threat, life and decay. This keeps differences between traditions visible.
Cosmos as a system of relationships
Völuspá and Grímnismál mention the tree, wells and various beings but emphasise different details. Snorri arranges the material more systematically. Modern diagrams often merge these statements into a geography that no single medieval text supplies in full.
Archaeological perspectives
World tree, middle enclosure, boundaries and roads can be read as images of proximity, distance, order and danger. Archaeological motifs of trees or axes invite comparison but are rarely labelled; identifying them directly as Yggdrasill therefore remains a reasoned interpretation.