The tree, its roots, and the roads between
An ash at the centre; the three who water its roots, who in Völuspá carve law into wood rather than spin thread; the watchman posted where the bridge meets heaven; and the eight-legged horse that carries riders between worlds.
The bright god and the death foretold
Baldr dreams his death and it comes. The Icelandic sources blame Loki; Saxo Grammaticus, writing in Latin in Denmark, tells it instead as two rivals over a woman, with no Loki in it at all. Loki’s daughter keeps Baldr below, and two more of his children wait for the last day.
Wisdom, war, and the halls of the slain
Odin pays for what he knows — an eye at Mímir’s well, nine nights hanging on the tree — and takes half the fallen; Freyja takes the other half, to her own hall and not to Valhöll. Frigg knows and does not tell. Thor is the one here attested outside the books, in hammer amulets from real graves and in place-names across Scandinavia.
