Norse cosmology knows not heaven and earth but nine worlds – strung along the world tree Yggdrasil, which runs through them all like an axis. Gods, humans, giants, elves, dwarves and the dead: each race has its place. This piece walks through all nine – and says honestly where the order is tradition and where later system.
The image above is not an illustration: it is our laser-engraved Yggdrasil world-tree birch disc (Ø 32–34 cm) – the whole cosmos on a real tree slice, with Asgard, Midgard, Jötunheim, Niflheim and all the other worlds around the Well of Urd. The individual worlds are shown close up further down. View in the shop →
‘Nine worlds I knew’, says the seeress in the Völuspá. The number nine is holy in the North – nine nights Odin hung in the tree, nine steps Thor walks after the fight with the serpent. Yet clear as the number sounds, the sources never list the nine worlds cleanly. What we know today as ‘the nine worlds’ is a synthesis by scholarship from many scattered mentions – mostly from Snorri’s Prose Edda and the Poetic Edda.
“Nine worlds I knew, the nine in the tree / with mighty roots beneath the mold.”Völuspá 2, translation after Henry Adams Bellows (public domain)
Yggdrasil, the evergreen world ash, holds everything together. Three vast roots reach to three wells: to Urðarbrunnr, the well of the Norn Urd among the gods, where the Norns water the tree daily with white clay so it does not rot; to Mímisbrunnr, the well of wisdom among the frost giants, for a drink of which Odin gave an eye; and to Hvergelmir in icy Niflheim, the source of all rivers, where the dragon Níðhöggr gnaws at the root. Between the worlds all manner of creatures mediate: a wise eagle in the crown, the squirrel Ratatoskr carrying insults between eagle and dragon, and four stags feeding on the buds. More in the Yggdrasil piece.
Asgard is the stronghold of the Æsir, high above all, with Odin’s hall Valhalla and the dwellings of the gods, joined to the human world by the rainbow bridge Bifröst that Heimdall guards. See our pantheon and Valhalla.
Vanaheim is the home of the Vanir, gods of fertility and wealth – Njörd, Freyr, Freyja. From here they came to Asgard as hostages after the Æsir–Vanir war.
Álfheim belongs to the Ljósálfar, the light elves, ‘fairer than the sun to look upon’, says Snorri. Notably, this world was given to the god Freyr as a ‘tooth-gift’ – a hint at the close bond of Vanir and elves.
Midgard (‘middle enclosure’) is our world, made from the eyebrows of the primal giant Ymir as a wall against the giants, ringed by the world ocean in which the Midgard Serpent Jörmungandr lies.
Jötunheim (also Útgard) is the rough land of the Jötnar, the giants – powers of chaos, but also bearers of ancient wisdom and often kin of the gods. Here Thor travels on his famous journeys; from here come many of the gods’ wives.
Deep underground lies the world of the dwarves (Svartálfar) and dark elves. Here, in the forges of Niðavellir, the greatest treasures are made: Thor’s hammer Mjölnir, Odin’s spear Gungnir and ring Draupnir, Freyr’s boar – and the unbreakable fetter Gleipnir with which Fenrir is bound.
Múspellsheim in the south is one of the two primal worlds: the realm of blazing fire, guarded by the fire giant Surt. From its sparks came sun, moon and stars; its fire devours the world at last in Ragnarök.
Niflheim in the north is the second primal world: cold, mist, primal ice. Here the well Hvergelmir springs, and here Níðhöggr gnaws the tree’s root. From the meeting of Niflheim and Múspellsheim in the yawning void came all life.
Hel (Helheim) is the realm of the death-goddess of the same name, a daughter of Loki. Here come those who die of age or sickness – not those fallen in battle (who belong to Odin and Freyja). Her hall is Éljúðnir, with telling names for threshold, plate and knife: ‘falling peril’, ‘hunger’, ‘famished’.
The image has a deep logic: all being hangs on one living tree – gods and humans, fire and ice, life and death are branches of the same trunk. The cosmos is not a rigid building but an organism that grows, suffers (the dragon gnaws, the stags feed) and must be tended (the Norns water it). Whoever engraves a piece of it for the wall carries this order into their own home: the tree that bears everything.
Yggdrasil in detail · Ginnungagap · Ymir & the making of the world · The Norse pantheon · Fenrir · Jörmungandr · Ragnarök · What comes after.
Poetic Edda (Codex Regius): Völuspá, Grímnismál (the tree and its creatures), Vafþrúðnismál. Snorri Sturluson, Prose Edda / Gylfaginning, c. 1220. English public-domain translation: Henry Adams Bellows, The Poetic Edda (1923). Scholarship: Rudolf Simek, Dictionary of Northern Mythology (on the inconsistency of the list of nine); John Lindow, Norse Mythology (2001). The divide between evidence and later system is marked in the text.