Imagine the holiest pillar of existence being constantly eaten alive by the creatures it shelters, with a name that translates to an instrument of execution. That is Yggdrasil, the immense ash tree at the center of Norse cosmology. Drawing on the Poetic Edda, Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda and modern scholarship, this deep dive maps the three roots and their wells, the chaotic ecosystem living in the branches, and the brutal etymology that links the tree to Odin's self-sacrifice.

We meet the eagle and hawk at the crown, the dragon Nidhogg gnawing the roots, the gossip-carrying squirrel Ratatoskr and the four stags stripping the foliage, then follow Odin's nine nights hanging pierced by his own spear to seize the runes. The episode explains how the kenning of the gallows as the horse of the hanged yields the name Odin's horse, considers Anato ...