Wyrd and the True Wyrde Systres II

All Hail!

At the birth of children the Wyrde Systres had a most outstanding worship of old. The Gesta Danorum  6.4.12 hath this:

“[1] Mos erat antiquis super futuris liberorum eventibus Parcarum oracula consultare. [2] Quo ritu Fridlevus Olavi filii fortunam exploraturus, nuncupatis sollemniter votis, dearum aedes precabundus accedit, ubi introspecto sacello ternas sedes totidem nymphis occupari cognoscit.”

“ The ancients were wont to consult the oracles of the Fates [Parcæ, gen. pl. Parcarum] concerning the destinies of their children. In this way Fridleif desired to search into the fate of his son Olaf; and, after solemnly offering up his vows, he went to the house of the gods in entreaty; where, looking into the chapel, he saw three maidens, sitting on three seats. ...”.
 
Reginald Pecock The Represser Of Over Moche Wijtyng The Clergie (Cmb Kk.4.26) ij. Parti,  iiij chapiter: 

“... and this opinioun, that iij sistris, whiche ben spiritis, comen to the cradilis of infantis forto sette to the babe what schal bifalle to him...”. 

The Christen did not like this at all and spoke out  against it, thus Roberd of Brunne's Handlyng Synne (Harl. MS. 1701; Bodl. 415.):

“Ȝyf þou trowest or vndyrstondys
Þat þre sustren ben shapandys,       572
And comun þere þe chylde ys bore,
And shapyn hyt wele or euel before;
For wykked beleue þat þou art ynne
Þey make þe chylde to falle yn synne;
Swyche beleue þou shuldest nat werche
Aȝens þe beleue of holy cherche.
Þer nys no shapper but god almyȝt,
Þat yn þe vyrgyne Mary lyȝt.
He ys shapper of al þyng;
Of al þat ys, he wote þe endyng;
He ys boþë god and man;
Alle he wote, and alle he can.
Þe touþer shappers þat men of telle,
Beteche we hem þe fende of helle.”

But what else are the three kings (hardly the “magi” of Matth.) who bring those meaningful gifts to the barn Jesus but the Wyrde Systres in men’s clothes? I mark well here that the “Three Kings” of Cologne were called “wicchis”: "Þe paynyms ... cleped þe iij kyngis Magos, þat is to seye wicchis."   The three Beten (or Bethen, Beden) are a German group of three saints, supposedly companions of Saint Ursula of Cologne. They are adored in minor churches and chapels in Bolzano-Bozen (Italy), Upper Bavaria, Baden and the Rhineland. Although the cult of the "Three Virgins" is known since the late Middle Ages, it is only distributed regionally and not contained in the official lists of saints of the Catholic church.  Many of the matres are to be outfolded as the Wyrde Systres or those elves they send on their behalf.  An inscription from Carlisle apparently reads: Matres Parcae pro salute Sancta Geminae (R.I.B. 951): “To the Mother Goddesses, the Fates, for the welfare of the Sanctia Gemina”. And another from Skinburness in Cumbria: Matribu[s] Par(cis) […], ‘To the Mothers, the Fates’(RIB 881).A relief, also from Carlisle, shows three Matres each one holding one of three things:   a flower, a fruit, and a knife. These look tokens of time, of wyrd, the knife could be linked to the shearing of the thread of life. (see Sylvia Barnard,  “The Matres of Roman Britain”, Archaeological Journal, vol. 142. 1985: 239). An image of the Matronae Aufaniae near Bonn has one of them holding a distaff, although it’s hard to know if it’s looking to the Fates or only women’s daily work. (see Miranda J. Green, Dictionary of Celtic Myth and Legend, 1997: 146).

 

In the North, as we have said, they are  the Nornir “þær er koma til hvers barns, er borit er, at skapa aldr” “who come to each child that is born, to appoint his life” as Snorri doth say in his Edda. Thus Helgakviða Hundingsbana hin fyrri from the Codex Regius:

1. Ár var alda, ǀ þat er arar gullu,

hnigu heilög vötn ǀ af Himinfjöllum;

þá hafði Helga ǀ inn hugumstóra

Borghildr borit ǀ í Brálundi.

2. Nótt varð í bæ, ǀ nornir kómu,

þær er öðlingi ǀ aldr of skópu;

þann báðu fylki ǀ frægstan verða

ok buðlunga ǀ beztan þykkja.

  1. In olden days, ǀ when eagles screamed,

And holy streams ǀ from heaven's crags fell,

Was Helgi then, ǀ the hero-hearted,

Borghild's son, ǀ in Bralund born.

2. 'Twas night in the dwelling, ǀ and Norns there came,

Who shaped the life ǀ of the lofty one;

They bade him most famed ǀ of fighters all

And best of princes ǀ ever to be.

From astrologia we cannot but think these are no more than an oblique way of referring to “the several situations of the two luminaries and the ascendant”. Ælfric's sermon on Epiphania Domini: 

 “...wæron sume gedwolmen ðe cwædon ðæt ælc man beo acenned be steorrena ȝesetnyssum, and þurh heora ymbryna him wyrd gelimpe...”.  

“...there were some heretics that said that each man is born by the layout of the stars, and Wyrd comes from their orbits  ...”. 

 

Plato hath the Wyrde Systres thus wielding the spheres with their planets in his Republic:

“[616b] ... But when seven days had elapsed for each group in the meadow, they were required to rise up on the eighth and journey on, and they came in four days to a spot whence they discerned, extended from above throughout the heaven and the earth, a straight light like a pillar [τεταμένον φῶς εὐθύ, οἷον κίονα], most nearly resembling the rainbow, but brighter and purer. To this they came [616c] after going forward a day's journey, and they saw there at the middle of the light the extremities of its fastenings stretched from heaven; for this light was the girdle of the heavens like the undergirders of triremes, holding together in like manner the entire revolving vault. And from the extremities was stretched the spindle of Necessity, through which all the orbits turned. Its staff and its hook were made of adamant, and the whorl of these and other kinds was commingled.  ...
[617b] ... And the spindle turned on the knees of Necessity, and up above on each of the rims of the circles a Siren stood, borne around in its revolution and uttering one sound, one note, and from all the eight there was the concord of a single harmony. And there were another three  [617c] who sat round about at equal intervals, each one on her throne, the Fates, daughters of Necessity, clad in white vestments with filleted heads, Lachesis, and Clotho, and Atropos, who sang in unison with the music of the Sirens, Lachesis singing the things that were, Clotho the things that are, and Atropos the things that are to be. And Clotho with the touch of her right hand helped to turn the outer circumference of the spindle, pausing from time to time. Atropos with her left hand in like manner helped to turn the inner circles, and Lachesis [617d] alternately with either hand lent a hand to each. ...”
We see here also that the Wyrde Systres are brought into harmony with the sirens.  This may seem an odd stead to find the sirens   until we read Plutarch in his Table Talk, who outfoldeth to us that the sirens here are truly a dark way of speaking of the Muses [here], and who were linked to the heavenly spheres.  But in Bœthius' De Consolatione de Philosophiæ prose 1 we will find the muses “musas” called “scenicas meretriculas” and “sirenes” by Lady Philosophy.  

Like the Wyrde Systres moreover,  the Muses were sometimes only thought of as three.  And in saying the Muses are nine we have thrice three.  What  Hesiodus (Ἡσίοδος) writeth in his Theogonia (Θεογονία) lines 36-38 of the Muses will make us think of the Wyrde Systres:

“Τύνη, Μουσάων ἀρχώμεθα, ταὶ Διὶ πατρὶ
ὑμνεῦσαι τέρπουσι μέγαν νόον ἐντὸς Ὀλύμπου,
εἰρεῦσαι τά τ᾽ ἐόντα τά τ᾽ ἐσσόμενα πρό τ᾽ ἐόντα,...”.

“Come thou, let us begin with the Muses who gladden
the great spirit of their father Zeus in Olympus
with their songs, telling of things that are and that shall be
and that were aforetime with consenting voice. ...”.

Whilst the  Greeks' Wyrde Systres, the Μοῖραι ‎(Moîrai, “Moirae”), from μοῖρᾰ ‎(moîra, “lot, allotted thing”). Clotho Κλωθώ, from κλώθω ‎(klṓthō, stavely “to spin”). Lákhesis Λάχεσις ‎(akin to λαγχάνω ‎(lankhánō, “win by lot”). Ἄτροπος From ᾰ̓́τροπος ‎(átropos, “unawending”), from ᾰ̓- ‎(a-, “un-”) +‎ -τροπος ‎(-tropos, “went; turned”), from τρέπω ‎(trépō, “I turn”). They are all called in the Odyssey Book 7 line 197 κλῶθές Spinners. Plato Republic book 10, 617c “Κλωθὼ δὲ τὰ ὄντα” “Clotho (sang) of the things that are” “Λάχεσιν μὲν τὰ γεγονότα” “Lachesis (singing) the things that were”, “ Ἄτροπον δὲ τὰ μέλλοντα” “and Atropos the things that are to be”. In book 10 of the Republic the fates linked to the sirens they sing in harmony with them and a κίων “φῶς εὐθύ, οἷον κίονα, μάλιστα τῇ ἴριδι προσφερῆ, ” “a straight light like a staple, most like a rainbow” . The sirens in the Odyssey book 12 lines 184 to 191 “know all things that come to pass upon the fruitful earth”. 

And withmete Diodorus Siculus 5.74.1:

“To the Muses, we are further told, it was given by their father Zeus to discover the letters and to combine words in the way which is designated poetry.”

Against Hyginus Fabulæ:

“The Parcæ, Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos invented seven Greek letters - A B H T I Y.” 

 Overlap?  But to be aware of what is, what was, and what will be is the Foresight (Prudentia) of the gods, and is ymean (=common) to all of them as a whole.  When men and women  share in it too, by the gift of the gods, they are said to be "prudent".

It is worthwhile to bethink here also upon Clio or Kleio (Κλειώ), who is often said to be the muse of history. Her name is from the root κλέω/κλείω "tell of" or "make well-known".  At an early time she was the muse of herying scopcraft (praise pœtry), thus Diodorus Siculus 4.7.4:

“Cleio is so named because the praise which poets sing in their encomia bestows great glory (kleos) upon those who are praised;...”.

But minning that, as Carlyle thought,  “... Universal History, the history of what man has accomplished in this world, is at bottom the History of the Great Men...”; by the time we get to Statius' Thebaid 10. 630 ff (awend. Mozley) she is fully the muse of history itself:

“... memor incipe Clio,                630
saecula te quoniam penes et digesta uetustas.”

“... Begin thou, unforgetting Clio, for all the ages are in thy keeping, and all the storied annals of the past.”

 The Wyrde Systres oversee metensomatosis (μετενσωμάτωσις)  or metempsychosis (μετεμψύχωσις) in the Republic 616b to 617e and 618a to 621c.  Belief in the immortality of the soul, although not compulsory,  is usual.  Lack of belief is a symptom of decay.   And among those who do believe in the immortality of the soul, a belief in reincarnation tends to prevail within a cycle of transmigrations (Hindu संसारः (saṃsāraḥ))  wherein all beings can go up and down in the hierarchy of beings according to their deeds, being reborn in higher or lower wombs according to whether they deserve to be punished or rewarded for their past lives (the aim being rebirth in progressively higher wombs in the hierarchy of beings until one has achieved the divine plane of existence (Hindu मोक्ष ‘moksha’ from a root ‘muc-’ "to let loose, let go"  )). As the Orphics said “From man, you became God”.    Once you understand this, many mysterious happenings  may be outfolded with eathe, not the least of which, is atheism and unbelief: 

 “It is not unlikely, too, that the rejection of god is a kind of punishment: we may well believe that those who knew the Gods and neglected them in one life may in another life be deprived of the knowledge of them altogether.” 

Farewell.

Wyrd and the True Wyrde Systres

All Hail!

In an earlier post [here] we marked that what we now call "history" is in Old English rightly understood as "wyrd" a word akin to the root of the old work-word weorþan "to become"; from Proto-Indo-European *wert- "to turn" the scholars tell us. Now the unwary and un-wellread can tie themselves up in dreadful knots over this word, and can come to all kinds of wrongful understandings of what wyrd truly is, and how it worketh. The first mistake to overcome is that wyrd is something that is a law unto itself and wholly beyond our understanding. Today, as of old, we will often find such utterings put forth, but they are not only thoroughly godless things to say, but utterly wrong, as will be seen in what followeth. Wyrd is indeed often a hard thing for men to understand, but not wholly beyond our grasp. And to show that it is no more than the working out of the dooms and forethought of the gods for mankind on earth, it was said of yore to be the outcome of three gydene: the "Wyrde systres". The knowledge of them hath never been forgotten by the English, and are now well known to all from Shakespeare's play Macbeth, where, misunderstood as the three witches (even though they are called weird sisters) they have not a little to do in what happeneth everywhere in that play. "Wyrde systres" gloss the Latin tria fata "three fates" or parcæ. We find this evening in the Catholicon Anglicum, but earlier in the Epinal-Erfurt gloss parcae-parce : uuyrdae (both) (but we also find parcas: burgrunae-burgrunae "borough dern rede-givers" - is the borough here the English Ásgarðr?). Corpus gloss "parcae: wyrde" "parcas:burgrune". Leiden gloss “fatum:wyrd” “fortunam (fort.), fatum: geuiif” “Fors:uyrd”. Corpus gloss also hath “fortuna:wyrd” “fors: wyrd”. Ælfred in his awending of Bœthius writeth of “Orfeus”:


“Ða eode he furþor oþ he gemette ða graman gydena ðe folcisce men hataþ Parcas ða hi secgaþ þ[æt] on nanum men nyton nane are ac ælcum menn wrecan be his gewyrhtum , ða hi secgaþ þ[æt] wealdan ælces monnes wyrde.”

“Then he went further until he met the grim gydene that folkish men call Parcas that they say know no mildfulness to no men but to all men wreke after his deeds, and that they say wield over each man's wyrd.”

The tria fata "three fates" or parcæ were shown as spinning the thread of life, meting it as they will (or rather as they are bidden), and then shearing it to bring it to an end. Thus Isidorus, Bishop of Hispalis Origines sive Etymologiae book viii §11 De diis gentium:

“Tria autem fata fingunt in colo et fuso digitisque filum ex lana torquentibus, propter tria tempora: praeteritum, quod in fuso iam netum atque involutum est: praesens, quod inter digitos neentis traicitur: futurum, in lana quae colo inplicata est, et quod adhuc per digitos neentis ad fusum tamquam praesens ad praeteritum traiciendum est. 93 Parcas κατ᾽ ἀντίφρασιν appellatas, quod minime parcant. Quas tres esse voluerunt: unam, quae vitam hominis ordiatur; alteram, quae contexat; tertiam, quae rumpat. Incipimus enim cum nascimur, sumus cum vivimus, desiimus cum interimus.”

“The three fates shape on the distaff and spindle, and by the fingers twisting the thread from the wool, on account of the three times: the past because on the spindle it is already woven and curled up: the present, because of the weaving passing among the fingers: the time to come, by the wool which is twisted on the distaff, and because of the weaving is yet to be transferred to the spindle by the finger just as the present is drawn from the past. They call them Parcæ by antiphrasis, as they spare few. These they were wanting to be three: the first one, who begins to weave the life of man; the second, who weaves it; the third who breaks it. For we begin when we are born, we are when we live, we end when we die. ”

Above: The Triumph of Death, or The Three Fates (triumphing over Chastity). Flemish tapestry (belike Brussels, about. 1510-1520). Victoria and Albert Museum, London.ᛋ

Varro De lingua Latina Book vi, §52:

“Ab hoc tempora quod tum pueris constituant Parcæ fando, dictum fatum et res fatales. ”

“From the fact that the Birth Goddesses [Parcæ] by fando 'speaking' then set the life periods for the children, fatum is named, and the things that are fatales 'fateful'. ”

That our "Wyrde systres" also span may be gleaned from the “Rhyming Poem” Exeter Book line 70 hath “me þæt wyrd gewæf”  and from what is misput to the new god in Bēowulf lines 696 to 697: “...Ac him Dryhten forgeaf/ wigspeda gewiofu, Wedera leodum ...”.  But this is seemingly all.

In the North the "Wyrde systres" are called "Nornir" and said to bear the names of: Urðr, Verðandi, Skuld.  These “skapa mönnum aldr” “shape the life of men” and our understanding of how they do this   is helped along by the verse in Völuspá 19 to 20 (awending Bellows):

19. Ask veit ek standa, ǀ heitir Yggdrasill
hár baðmr, ausinn ǀ hvíta auri;
þaðan koma döggvar ǀ þærs í dala falla;
stendr æ yfir grœnn ǀ Urðar brunni.

20. Þaðan koma meyjar| margs vitandi
þrjár ór þeim sæ,| er und þolli stendr;
Urð hétu eina,| aðra Verðandi,
- skáru á skíði, -| Skuld ina þriðju;
þær lög lögðu,| þær líf kuru
alda börnum,| örlög seggja.

19. An ash I know, | Yggdrasil its name,
With water white | is the great tree wet;
Thence come the dews | that fall in the dales,
Green by Urth's well | does it ever grow.

20. Thence come the maidens | mighty in wisdom,
Three from the dwelling | down 'neath the tree;
Urth is one named, | Verthandi the next,--
On the wood they scored,-- | and Skuld the third.
Laws they made there, and life allotted
To the sons of men, and set their fates.

The wording "skáru á skíði" "scored on shides (bits of wood)" is markworthy and linketh North with the South.  Thus Felix Martianus Capella, in his De nuptiis Philologiæ et Mercurii et de septem artibus liberalibus libri novum :

“Clotho vero, Lachesis, Atroposque, quoniam sententias Jovis orthographæ studio veritatis excipiunt, utpote librariæ superum archivique custodes, quum senatum curiamque contrahi, et ipsum Tonantem exuviis indusiari publice cernerent, magistratus in acta coelestiumque consultum stilos acuunt cerasque componunt.” 

“[65] Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos, who by their study of true and correct writing recorded the decisions of Jove – being the librarians of the gods and the keepers of their archives – when they saw that the Thunderer himself was donning his magisterial robes, sharpened their styluses and collected their tablets to record the decisions of the president and the deliberations of the gods.” 

[The Marriage of Mercury and Philology awent by William Harris Stahl and Richard Johnson with E.L. Burge, Columbia University Press, 1977C.E. – Book 1, §65, lvs. 24 to 25].
 

The  þollur which Bellows awendeth as "tree" is, needless to say, the great ash tree we wrote about at length in the last post [here].  But it is worth minning here again what Snorri Sturluson writeth in his Edda, Gylfaginning:

“Þá mælti Gangleri: "Hvar er höfuðstaðrinn eða helgistaðrinn goðanna?"

Hár svarar: "Þat er at aski Yggdrasils. Þar skulu guðin eiga dóma sína hvern dag."
...

Þá segir Jafnhárr: "Askrinn er allra trjá mestr ok beztr. Limar hans dreifast um heim allan ok standa yfir himni.   ... Þriðja rót asksins stendr á himni, ok undir þeiri rót er brunnr sá, er mjök er heilagr, er heitir Urðarbrunnr. Þar eiga goðin dómstað sinn. ...

Enn er þat sagt, at nornir þær er byggja Urðarbrunn taka hvern dag vatn í brunninum ok með aurinn þann er liggr um brunninn, ok ausa upp yfir askinn til þess at eigi skyli limar hans tréna eða fúna. En þat vatn er svá heilagt at allir hlutir þeir sem þar koma í brunninn verða svá hvítir sem hinna sú er skjall heitir, er innan liggr við eggskurn, svá sem hér segir: 

 

Ask veit ek ausinn,
heitir Yggdrasils,
hár baðmr heilagr,
hvíta auri.
Þaðan koma döggvar
er í dali falla.
Stendr hann æ yfir grœnn
Urðarbrunni.

Sú dögg er þaðan af fellr á jörðina, þat kalla menn hunangfall, ok þar af fœðask býflugur. Fuglar tveir fœðask í Urðarbrunni, þeir heita svanir, ok af þeim fuglum hefir komit þat fugla kyn er svá heitir.”.

 Awending Arthur Gilchrist Brodeur:

“Then said Gangleri: "Where is the chief abode or holy place of the gods?"

Hárr answered: 'That is at the Ash of Yggdrasill; there the gods must give judgment everyday."

...
Then said Jafnhárr: "The Ash is greatest of all trees and best: its limbs spread out over all the world and stand above heaven. ...

The third root of the Ash stands in heaven; and under that root is the well which is very holy, that is called the Well of Urdr (Urðarbrunnr); there the gods hold their tribunal. ...

It is further said that these Norns who dwell by the Well of Urdr take water of the well every day, and with it that clay which lies about the well, and sprinkle it over the Ash, to the end that its limbs shall not wither nor rot; for that water is so holy that all things which come there into the well become as white as the film which lies within the egg-shell,--as is here said:
I know an Ash standing | called Yggdrasill,
A high tree sprinkled | with snow-white clay;
Thence come the dews | in the dale that fall--
It stands ever green | above Urdr's Well.

That dew which falls from it onto the earth is called by men honey-dew, and thereon are bees nourished. Two fowls are fed in Urdr's Well: they are called Swans, and from those fowls has come the race of birds which is so called.”

Before going on we might wander a little here to see how J. R. R. Tolkien borroweth Urðarbrunnr into his The Fellowship of the Ring (1954) Book II, chap. 7:

“Even as he spoke, they saw, as if she came in answer to their words, the Lady Galadriel approaching. Tall and white and fair she walked beneath the trees. She spoke no word, but beckoned to them.

Turning aside, she led them toward the southern slopes of the hill of Caras Galadhon, and passing through a high green hedge they came into an enclosed garden. No trees grew there, and it lay open to the sky. The evening star had risen and was shining with white fire above the western woods. Down a long flight of steps the Lady went into a deep green hollow, through which ran murmuring the silver stream that issued from the fountain on the hill. At the bottom, upon a low pedestal carved like a branching tree, stood a basin of silver. wide and shallow, and beside it stood a silver ewer.

With water from the stream Galadriel filled the basin to the brim, and breathed on it, and when the water was still again she spoke. `Here is the Mirror of Galadriel,' she said. 'I have brought you here so that you may look in it, if you will.'

The air was very still, and the dell was dark, and the Elf-lady beside him was tall and pale. 'What shall we look for, and what shall we see? ' asked Frodo, filled with awe.

`Many things I can command the Mirror to reveal,' she answered, `and to some I can show what they desire to see. But the Mirror will also show things unbidden, and those are often stranger and more profitable than things which we wish to behold. What you will see, if you leave the Mirror free to work, I cannot tell. For it shows things that were, and things that are, things that yet may be. But which it is that he sees, even the wisest cannot always tell. Do you wish to look? '

Frodo did not answer.”

But getting back to the path, we can see that what the gods deem in their doom-stead, the Northern "Wyrde systres" write down on bits of wood as if this made them steadfast laws. From this alone it doth seem to me a great unlikelihood that the gods are under the "Wyrde systres". And the whisper of this becometh ever louder the more we look southward. Thus  Capella again, in his De nuptiis Philologiæ et Mercurii ... I. 3 writeth:

 

 

“... poetaeque praecipue Oeagrium citharistam secuti, caecutientisque Maeonii suaviloquam senectutem, epica vulgo lyricaque pagina consonarent: nec aliquid dulcius Jovi inter aethereas voluptates una conjuge loquerentur: hisque accederet promtior fides, quae suadente aruspicio grandaevos pontifices in testimonium convocat, quum quid Jupiter hominum votis trepida curarum ambage suspensis multa implacabilis hostia denegaret, exorata ejus matrona provenire, et' quicquid ille ex promta sententia Parcarum pugillo asservante dictaverit, delinitum svadae conjugis amplexibus jussuque removere.”

 

  “...The poets, who were disciples of the Thracian lyre player [Orpheus] and the blind Maeonian [Homer], old and eloquent, published epic poems and lyrics about the marriages; they sang that amongst the delights of heaven nothing pleased Jove more than his wife alone.  Old priests are encouraged by ready credence to give their message when the omens suggest it; and ready credence was given to the message of the poets that when Jupiter, unappeased despite many sacrifices, denies anything to the hesitant prayers of men worried by doubts and fears, it comes to pass, when prayer is addressed to his wife, when he has with dispatch passed a sentence and the hand of the Parcae is waiting to carry out his order, he cancels it when his wife gently persuades him and mollifies him with her embraces.”

[The Marriage of Mercury and Philology awent by William Harris Stahl and Richard Johnson with E.L. Burge, Columbia University Press, 1977C.E. – Book I. 3, lf. 5].

They are not at all greater than the gods as some have badly thought. Pausanias Guide to Greece, vol. I, Book I (Attica), chapitle 40 §4, lf.113, writing of Megara:

“μετὰ ταῦτα ἐς τὸ τοῦ Διὸς τέμενος ἐσελθοῦσι καλούμενον Ὀλυμπιεῖον ναός ἐστι θέας ἄξιος: τὸ δὲ ἄγαλμα οὐκ ἐξειργάσθη τοῦ Διός, … τῷ δὲ ἀγάλματι τοῦ Διὸς πρόσωπον ἐλέφαντος καὶ χρυσοῦ, τὰ δὲ λοιπὰ πηλοῦ τέ ἐστι καὶ γύψου: … ὑπὲρ δὲ τῆς κεφαλῆς τοῦ Διός εἰσιν Ὧραι καὶ Μοῖραι: δῆλα δὲ πᾶσι τὴν πεπρωμένην μόνῳ οἱ πείθεσθαι καὶ τὰς ὥρας τὸν θεὸν τοῦτον νέμειν ἐς τὸ δέον. ”

“After this when you have entered the precinct of Zeus called the Olympieum you see a note worthy temple. But the image of Zeus was not finished, … The face of the image of Zeus is of ivory and gold, the other parts are of clay and gypsum. … Above the head of Zeus are the Seasons and Fates, and all may see that he is the only god obeyed by Destiny, and that he apportions the seasons as is due. ” 

[Pausanias.  Description of Greece with an English awending by W.H.S. Jones, Litt.D., and H.A. Ormerod, M.A., in 4 Volumes. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1918.]

Ælfred in his awending of Bœthius mindeth us that Wyrd is only the name we give to the forethought and day to day working of the highest god, and is one of many "tools" this god hath to bring things to the wished for end. Thus xxxix §5 [Bœthius book 4, prosa vi] awending Samuel Fox:

“Ða ongon he sprecan swiþe feorran ymbuton. Swilce he na þa spræce ne mænde 7 tiohhode hit þeah þiderweardes 7 cwæþ. Ealle gesceafta gesewenlice and ungesewenlice, stillu 7 unstillu onfoþ æt þæm stillan 7 æt þam gestæþþigan 7 æt þam anfealdan Gode, endebyrdnesse 7 andwlitan 7 gemetgunge 7 forhwæm hit swa gesceapen wæs forhwæm he þat þy he gesceop eall þ[æt] he gesceop. Nis him nan wuht unnyt þæs ðe he gesceop. Se God wunaþ simle on þære hean ceastre his anfealdnesse 7 bilewitnesse. Ðonan he dælþ manega 7 mistlice gemetgunga eallum his gesceaftum and þonon he welt eallra. Ac þ[æt], þ[æt]te we hataþ Godes foreþonc 7 his foresceawung, þ[æt] biþ ða hwile þe hit þær mid him biþ, on his mode, ærþam þe hit gefremed weorþe ða hwile þe hit geþoht biþ. AC SIÐÐAN HIT FULLFREMED BIÞ, ÐONNE HATAÞ WE HIT WYRD. Be þy mæg ælc mon witan þ[æt] hi sint ægþer ge twegen naman ge twa ðing: foreþonc 7 wyrd. Se foreþonc is sio godcunde gesceadwisnes. Sio is fæst on þam hean sceopppende þe eall forewrat hu hit geweorþan sceal ær ær hit geweorþe. Ac þ[æt], þ[æt] we wyrd hataþ þ[æt] biþ Godes weorc þe ælce dæg wyrcþ, ægþer ge þæs þe we geseoþ, ge þæs þe us ungesewenlic biþ. Ac se godcunda foreþonc heaþeraþ (restrains) ealle gesceafta þ[æt] hi ne moton toslupan of heora endebyrdnesse. SIO WYRD ÐONNE DÆLÞ EALLUM GESCEAFTUM ANDWLITAN 7 STOWA 7 TIDA 7 GEMETGUNGA. Ac sio wyrd cymþ of þam gewitte 7 of þam foreþonce þæs ælmihtigan Godes. Se wyrcþ æfter his unasecgendlicum foreþonce þonne swa hwæt swa he wille.

§6 swa swa ælc cræftega þencþ 7 mearcaþ his weorc on his Mode ær ær he it wyrce, 7 wyrcþ siððan eall. Þios wandriende wyrd þe we wyrd hataþ færþ æfter his foreþonce, 7 æfter his geþeahte, swa swa he tiohhaþ þ[æt] hit sie. Þeah hit us manigfealdlic ðince, sum god, sum yfel, hit is þeah him anfeald god. Forþam he hit eall to godum ende bringþ, 7 for gode deþ eall þ[æt] þ[æt] he deþ. Siþþan we hit hataþ wyrd, syððan hit geworht biþ, ær hit wæs godes foreþonc 7 his foretiohhung. Ða wyrd he ðonne wyrcþ, oððe þurh ða godan englas, oððe þurh monna sawla, oððe þurh oððe oþerra gesceafta lif, oððe þurh heofones tungl, oþþe þurh ðara scuccena. Mistlice lotwrencas, hwilum þurh an þara, hwilum þurh eall ða. Ac þ[æt] is openlice cuþ, þ[æt] sio godcunde fore teohhung is anfeald 7 unawendendlic 7 welt ælces þinges endebyrdlice, and all þing gehiwaþ. Sume þing þonne on ðisse worulde sint underþied þære wyrd, sume hire nane wuht underþiede, ne sint. Ac sio wyrd 7 eall þa þing þe hire underþied sint, sint underþied þam godcundan foreþonce.

V. Then began he to speak very far about, as if he intended not that discourse, and nevertheless approached thitherward, and said : All creatures visible and invisible, still and moving, receive from the immovable, and from the steadfast, and from singly-existing God, order, and form and measure; and therefore it was so ordained, because he knew wherefore he made all that he made. Nothing of that which he has created is useless to him. God dwells always in the high city of his unity and simplicity. Thence he distributes many and various measures to all his creatures, and thence he governs them all. But that which we call God's providence and foreknowledge, is such while it is with him, in his mind, before it is fulfilled, and so long as it is designed; BUT AFTER IT IS FULFILLED, THEN WE CALL IT FATE [WYRD]. Hence may every man know that these are both two names, and two things, providence and fate. Providence is the divine intelligence which is fixed in the high Creator, who foreknows all, how it shall come to pass, before it happens. But that which we call fate, is God's work which he every day works, both what we see, and what is invisible to us. But the divine providence restrains all creatures, so that they cannot slip from their order. FATE, THEN, DISTRIBUTES TO ALL CREATURES, FORMS, AND PLACES, AND TIMES, AND MEASURES. But fate comes from the mind, and from the providence of Almighty God. He, therefore, works after his unspeakable providence, whatsoever he wills.


VI. As every artificer considers and marks out his work in his mind before he executes it, and afterwards executes it all; this varying fortune which we call fate, proceeds after his providence and after his counsel, as he intends that it should be. Though it appear to us complicated, partly good, and partly evil, it is nevertheless to him singly good, because he brings it all to a good end, and does for good all that which he does. (Afterwards, when it is wrought, we call it fate; before, it was God's providence, and his predestination.) He therefore directs fortune, either through good angels, or through the souls of men, or through the life of other creatures, or through the stars of heaven, or through the various deceits of devils ; sometimes through one of them, sometimes through them all.] But this is evidently known, that the divine predestination is simple and unchangeable, and governs everything according to order, and fashions everything. Some things, therefore, in this world are subject to fate, others are not at all subject to it. But fate, and all the things which are subject to it, are subject to the divine providence.

For that things happen against what many might ween to be what the highest god should wish the outcome to be, the widespread mistake hath arisen that wyrd is working against this god, or is somehow free of his wieldship. Neither of which are rightly said. The sooth is as Ælfred wrote in chap. X [Bœthius book 4, prosa 6]:

"Ðæt we ðonne hataþ wyrd; ðonne se gesceadwisa God ðe ælces monnes ðearfe wat hwæt wyrcþ oððe geþafaþ þæs ðe we ne wenaþ."

"This then we call fate [wyrd]; when the wise God, who knows every man's necessity, does or permits anything which we expect not."

That we men, from our low, time-bound and earthfast, outlook on the world, should have made a mistake about the high god, is, needless to say, much more likely than that he doth not know what he is doing, or that he is seemingly so weak as to be sometimes overcome by wyrd.

The careful reader will have already seen wyrd being linked to "tida" "tides" will have something to do with the "Wyrde systres" being three. Thus Aristotle On the Heavens (Greek: Περὶ οὐρανοῦ, Latin: De Caelo or De Caelo et Mundo) book 1, chapitle 1:

“Καθάπερ γάρ φασι καὶ οἱ Πυθαγόρειοι, τὸ πᾶν καὶ τὰ πάντα τοῖς τρισὶν ὥρισται· τελευτὴ γὰρ καὶ μέσον καὶ ἀρχὴ τὸν ἀριθμὸν ἔχει τὸν τοῦ παντός, ταῦτα δὲ τὸν τῆς τριάδος. Διὸ παρὰ τῆς φύσεως εἰληφότες ὥσπερ νόμους ἐκείνης, καὶ πρὸς τὰς ἁγιστείας χρώμεθα τῶν θεῶν τῷ ἀριθμῷ τούτῳ. ”


“For, as the Pythagoreans say, the world and all that is in it is determined by the number three, since beginning and middle and end give the number of an 'all', and the number they give is the triad. And so, having taken these three from nature as (so to speak) laws of it, we make further use of the number three in the worship of the Gods.”

[Awending J. L. Stocks].


And in Plato Laws Book 4, 715e to 716a you will see how Zeus was sometimes thought of as threefold among the Greeks of yore from the same inting. And this would be another way of outfolding the meaning of the three eyes of the Zeus in the Larisaean citadel of Argos (see Paus. 2.24.3). The two things being truly the same. And we minn that the Northerners say Óðinn, our Wōden, is one of three brothers ( Heimskringla, Ynglinga saga 3: “Óðinn átti tvá brœðr, hét annarr Vé, en annarr Vili; ...). And in Grímnismál we find as nicknames for Wōden, Þriði (v.46), Hár. (v. 46), Jafnhár (v.49), which three names are brooked by Snorri Sturluson for the three kings the Gylfi talketh to in the Gylfaginning.

Before leaving this here, it is worth marking Ælfred's words which make me to think of an English Ásgarðr again:

" Se God wunaþ simle on þære hean ceastre his anfealdnesse 7 bilewitnesse. Ðonan he dælþ manega 7 mistlice gemetgunga eallum his gesceaftum and þonon he welt eallra."

"God dwells always in the high city of his unity and simplicity. Thence he distributes many and various measures to all his creatures, and thence he governs them all. "
Or Hliðskjálf?

Grímnismál:

"Óðinn ok Frigg sátu í Hliðskjálfu ok sáu um heima alla."

"Othin and Frigg sat in Hlithskjolf and looked over all the worlds."

Gylfaginning 9:

"Þar er einn staðr, er Hliðskjálf heitir, ok þá er Óðinn settist þar í hásæti, þá sá hann of alla heima ok hvers manns athæfi ok vissi alla hluti, þá er hann sá."

"There is one abode called Hlidskjálf, and when Allfather sat in the high-seat there, he looked out over the whole world and saw every man's acts, and knew all things which he saw."

Farewell.

The Ash Tree.

All Hail!

In the old American-English outlaying of C. S. Lewis' The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1950) chapitle 13, the Witch speaketh to Aslan of “the Deep Magic” written “in letters as deep as a spear is long on the trunk of the world ash-tree” (but in the (slightly) older English-English outlaying this was “in letters as deep as a spear is long on the fire-stones of the Secret Hill”).

“the world ash-tree” ?

As always, we have to look northward first.  Snorri Sturluson writeth in his Edda, Gylfaginning:

“Þá mælti Gangleri: "Hvar er höfuðstaðrinn eða helgistaðrinn goðanna?"

Hár svarar: "Þat er at aski Yggdrasils. Þar skulu guðin eiga dóma sína hvern dag."
...

Þá segir Jafnhárr: "Askrinn er allra trjá mestr ok beztr. Limar hans dreifast um heim allan ok standa yfir himni.   ... Þriðja rót asksins stendr á himni, ok undir þeiri rót er brunnr sá, er mjök er heilagr, er heitir Urðarbrunnr. Þar eiga goðin dómstað sinn. ...”.

 Awending Arthur Gilchrist Brodeur:

“Then said Gangleri: "Where is the chief abode or holy place of the gods?"

Hárr answered: 'That is at the Ash of Yggdrasill; there the gods must give judgment everyday."
 ...
 Then said Jafnhárr: "The Ash is greatest of all trees and best: its limbs spread out over all the world and stand above heaven. ...
The third root of the Ash stands in heaven; and under that root is the well which is very holy, that is called the Well of Urdr (Urðarbrunnr); there the gods hold their tribunal. ...”.

He then goeth on in Gylfaginning 15 and 16 to areach (=describe) Yggdrasill at some length.

For the Nor'n (=Norse) see here. 

For Brodeur's awending into English see here. 

Yggdrasill from the 17th yearhundreds Icelandish handwrit AM 738 4to, now in the care of the Árni Magnússon Institute in Iceland.ᛋ

  

And as much of what Snorri writeth is drawn from the older leeth Grímnismál 29 to 35 I give the No'rn and English of these here.  But I mark Grímnismál is at odds with Snorri. For Grímnismál hath one of the three roots of Yggdrasill ending with  “mennskir menn” “mannish men” whilst Snorri hath the same root ending á himni “in heaven” at Urðarbrunnr “Wyrd's bourne or well”.  That Urðarbrunnr is under Yggdrasill is from Völuspá 19, but that it is so far under as to be at the root would seem to be a mistake.  Wherever Urðarbrunnr is however, there is also seemingly Háva höll “Hall of the High One”, and maybe a þular stóll “Stool or Seat of the þulr or Speaker” (see Hávamál 111).  

Nothing is said in the North about the frimth (=origin) of Yggdrasill “ugly horse (drasill, drösull, from draga “to drag, draw”)”, nor of the tree's end, and this is in itself most markworth.   Yggdrasill would not seem to be wholly beyond the reach of time however, and would be all eaten away and rotten if the three Nornir who live under the tree did not heal him by a daily sprinkling of aur “mud” from Urðarbrunnr over the tree (see Gylfaginning 16).  Yggdrasill, needless to say, doth not seem to belong at all to the Ymir-myth, something older I think.  

Furthermore, how what is said of Yggdrasill fitteth in with what is said of Ásgarðr and Hliðskjálf is nowhere outfolded for us.  Hliðskjálf is All-Father's high seat, from which all worlds can be seen (see Grímnismál and Skírnismál forewords, and Gylfaginning 9 and 37, foreword).   But as All-Father's high seat is said to be in Ásgarðr (Gylfaginning 14, therein araught as a “borg í miðjum heimi” “a borough in the middle of the world” ), and the gods are said to ride each day to Yggdrasill, seemingly having set out from Ásgarðr (Gylfaginning 15) the true layout of all these things would now seem to outleap our grasp.   A “borough” at the top of a tree, or tree-like plant, is known to all readers of the “Jack and the Bean-stalk”.

 

A doom-stead of the gods is also to be found in what Plato writeth in his Critias 121b to c:

“[121b] ... θεὸς δὲ ὁ θεῶν Ζεὺς ἐν νόμοις βασιλεύων, ἅτε δυνάμενος καθορᾶν τὰ τοιαῦτα, ἐννοήσας γένος ἐπιεικὲς ἀθλίως διατιθέμενον, δίκην αὐτοῖς [121c] ἐπιθεῖναι βουληθείς, ἵνα γένοιντο ἐμμελέστεροι σωφρονισθέντες, συνήγειρεν θεοὺς πάντας εἰς τὴν τιμιωτάτην αὐτῶν οἴκησιν, ἣ δὴ κατὰ μέσον παντὸς τοῦ κόσμου βεβηκυῖα καθορᾷ πάντα ὅσα γενέσεως μετείληφεν, καὶ συναγείρας εἶπεν— ...”

“[121b] ... And Zeus, the God of gods, who reigns by Law, inasmuch as he has the gift of perceiving such things, marked how this righteous race was in evil plight, and desired to inflict punishment upon them, to the end that when chastised they might strike a truer note. [121c] Wherefore he assembled together all the gods into that abode which they honour most, standing as it does at the centre of all the Universe (μέσον παντὸς τοῦ κόσμου), and beholding all things that partake of generation and when he had assembled them, he spake thus: ... ”
[Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 9 awent by W.R.M. Lamb. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1925. ] 

Plato here hath set the gods’  “most honourable habitation” in a stowe “in the middle of the universe” (“...μέσον παντὸς τοῦ κόσμου ...”) and which must nevertheless be on high, if not beyond the highest, as from there looking down (καθορᾷ), can be seen, “all such things as participate of generation” (“...πάντα ὅσα γενέσεως μετείληφεν,...”).  So Hliðskjálf and the doom-stead at Yggdrasill all in one. And this is likely to be the truth lost sight of among the Northern skald, as Lucianus of Samosata in Commagene well wrote:

“... so long as the poets are under the inspiration of the Muses, they speak truth: but once let those Goddesses leave them to their own devices, and they make blunders and contradict themselves. Nor can we blame them: they are but men; how should they know truth, when the divinity whose mouthpieces they were is departed from them? ...”.


Another way to go here would be that set out by Aristotle in his On the Heavens (Greek: Περὶ οὐρανοῦ, Latin: De Caelo or De Caelo et Mundo) Book II, chapitle 13, §1:

“... ἀλλὰ τῶν πλείστων ἐπὶ τοῦ μέσου κεῖσθαι λεγόντων, ὅσοι τὸν ὅλον οὐρανὸν πεπερασμένον εἶναί φασιν, ἐναντίως οἱ περὶ τὴν Ἰταλίαν, καλούμενοι δὲ Πυθαγόρειοι λέγουσιν· ἐπὶ μὲν γὰρ τοῦ μέσου πῦρ εἶναί φασι, τὴν δὲ γῆν, ἓν τῶν ἄστρων οὖσαν, κύκλῳ φερομένην περὶ τὸ μέσον νύκτα τε καὶ ἡμέραν ποιεῖν. Ἔτι δ' ἐναντίαν ἄλλην ταύτῃ κατασκευάζουσι γῆν, ἣν ἀντίχθονα ὄνομα καλοῦσιν, οὐ πρὸς τὰ φαινόμενα τοὺς λόγους καὶ τὰς αἰτίας ζητοῦντες, ἀλλὰ πρός τινας λόγους καὶ δόξας αὑτῶν τὰ φαινόμενα προσέλκοντες καὶ πειρώμενοι συγκοσμεῖν.  Πολλοῖς δ' ἂν καὶ ἑτέροις συνδόξειε μὴ δεῖν τῇ γῇ τὴν τοῦ μέσου χώραν ἀποδιδόναι, τὸ πιστὸν οὐκ ἐκ τῶν φαινομένων ἀθροῦσιν ἀλλὰ μᾶλλον ἐκ τῶν λόγων. Τῷ γὰρ τιμιωτάτῳ οἴονται προσήκειν τὴν τιμιωτάτην ὑπάρχειν χώραν, εἶναι δὲ πῦρ μὲν γῆς τιμιώτερον, τὸ δὲ πέρας τοῦ μεταξύ, τὸ δ' ἔσχατον καὶ τὸ μέσον πέρας· ὥστ' ἐκ τούτων ἀναλογιζόμενοι οὐκ οἴονται ἐπὶ τοῦ μέσου τῆς σφαίρας κεῖσθαι αὐτήν, ἀλλὰ μᾶλλον (293b.) τὸ πῦρ. Ἔτι δ' οἵ γε Πυθαγόρειοι καὶ διὰ τὸ μάλιστα προσήκειν φυλάττεσθαι τὸ κυριώτατον τοῦ παντός, τὸ δὲ μέσον εἶναι τοιοῦτον, [ὃ] Διὸς φυλακὴν ὀνομάζουσι τὸ ταύτην ἔχον τὴν χώραν πῦρ· ὥσπερ τὸ μέσον ἁπλῶς λεγόμενον, καὶ τὸ τοῦ μεγέθους μέσον καὶ τοῦ πράγματος ὂν μέσον καὶ τῆς φύσεως.”

“But the Italian philosophers known as Pythagoreans take the contrary view. At the centre (ἐπὶ τοῦ μέσου), they say, is fire (πῦρ), and the earth is one of the stars, creating night and day by its circular motion about the centre. They further construct another earth in opposition to ours to which they give the name counter-earth. In all this they are not seeking for theories and causes to account for observed facts, but rather forcing their observations and trying to accommodate them to certain theories and opinions of their own. But there are many others who would agree that it is wrong to give the earth the central position, looking for confirmation rather to theory than to the facts of observation. Their view is that the most precious place befits the most precious thing: but fire, they say, is more precious than earth, and the limit than the intermediate, and the circumference and the centre are limits. Reasoning on this basis they take the view that it is not earth that lies at the centre of the sphere, but rather fire. The Pythagoreans have a further reason. They hold that the most important part of the world, which is the centre, should be most strictly guarded, and name it, or rather the fire which occupies that place, the 'Guardhouse of Zeus' (Διὸς φυλακὴν), as if the word 'centre' were quite unequivocal, and the centre of the mathematical figure were always the same with that of the thing or the natural centre. ”

[Awending John Leofric Stocks].

  
And which would seem to underlie the Greeks' own belief that Delphi in Phocis was the middle-stead of the world, where an ever-burning fire was kindled, and Apollo was thought to be in some way.  As Plato writeth of him in the Republic (Πολιτεία/"Politeía"), Book IV, 427c:

“ὁ θεὸς ...  [ἐν μέσῳ] τῆς γῆς ἐπὶ τοῦ ὀμφαλοῦ καθήμενος ...”

“The God who sits in the centre on the navel of the Earth...”.

And also the following belief once found among the Parsees from the Dabistān-i Mazāhib (دبستان مذاهب‎‎) "School of Religions" (awending David Shea and Anthony Troyer):

“The chief of this sect was Rád Gúnah, one of the eminently brave, a lion-like hero, who, to beneficent acts and abstinence from cruelty to animals, joined the dignity of knowledge; he enjoyed distinguished honor and rank about the end of Jamshíd's reign and the commencement of Zohák's usurpation: his opinion is, that God is the same as the sun, whose bounty extends to all beings; and that the fourth heaven, by reason of its consti­tuting the true centre of the seven heavens, is the seat of his glory; and as his essence is pure good, his place must also be regarded as a proof of his goodness: besides this, his grace extends alike to all bodies, whether superior or inferior: moreover, as the heart, which is the sovereign of the body, is settled in the midst of the breast, such is also the rule and custom observed by renowned princes to fix the seat of government in the centre of their realms, so that their bounty as well as severity may be equally extended over the whole community; and, by such a measure, the repose of the people and the due regulations of the Rayas may be pro­moted. ...”

 It is worth marking here that Henry Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim putteth the ash tree under both the sun and Jupiter (see Three Books of Occult Philosophy Book 1, Chapitles xxiii and xxvi). Nicholas Culpeper (1616-1654) in his Compleat herbal (1653) would put it under the sun “it is governed by the sun...”. 

As above, so below.

To my mind, as also to many another's, there is an earthly match to the mythic Yggdrasill, at Old Uppsala.  Thus in scholion 134 of Magister Adam of Bremen’s areaching (=description) of the temple at Old Uppsala in Capitulum 26 to Descriptio insularum aquilonis etched (=added) to his Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum we read:

“Prope illud templum est arbor maxima late ramos extendens, semper viridis in hieme et aestate; cuius illa generis sit, nemo scit. Ibi etiam est fons, ubi sacrificia paganorum solent exerceri et homo vivus immergi. Qui dum non invenitur, ratum erit votum populi.”

“Near this temple is a great tree stretching boughs widely, always green in winter and summer; what kind it is, nobody knoweth. There also is a spring, where they are wont to oversee the offerings of the heathens and sink a living man. Who, when he is not found, the bidding of the folk will be allowed.”

And we should bear in mind here that the holy middle-stead (=centre) of the kingdom of the Swedes was of yore at Old Uppsala (see Ynglinga saga 38, Saga Ólafs hins helga 76).

Yet another earthly likeness is to be found, most wonderful to say, in Ireland where an ash tree is a mark tree of the middle-stead there.  But maybe not so wonderfully, if we call to mind the following from the Lebor Gabála Érenn, outlaid and awent by R. A. S. Macalister, Dublin, Irish Texts Society, 1941:

“Batar iarum clanda Bethaig meic Iarboneoil Fáda meic Nemid  i n-insib  tuascertachaib in domain oc foglaim druidechta & fessa & fastini & amainsechta. Combtar fortaile for cerddib suíthe gentliucta. Combtar iat Tuatha De Danand tancatar Herind.”
 
Ҥ54. Thereafter the progeny of Bethach s. Iarbonel the Soothsayer s. Nemed were in the northern islands of the world, learning druidry and knowledge and prophecy and magic, till they were expert in the arts of pagan cunning.
 §55. So that they were the Tuatha De Danann who came to Ireland.”

In The Metrical Dindshenchas therefore, we find three ash trees marked but they are all in Meath/West Meath, the middle of Ireland in the
old reckoning (awending Edward Gwynn):

“Cía dorochair Cróeb Da Thí?
mór n-amsach cóem roscáth-í:
unnius, crand na slúag solom,

rop é in barr cen búan-torod.
Unnius i Tortain, tuirmuid, unius Uisnig il-buidnig.”

“How fell the Bough of Da Thí?
it sheltered the strength of many a gentle hireling:
an ash, the tree of the nimble hosts,
its top bore no lasting yield.
The ash of Tortu – take count thereof!
The Ash of populous Uisneach.”

Cróeb Da Thí is said to have been in Farbil Barony in easternmost Westmeath. Unnius i Tortain at Ardbraccan, near Navan in  Meath in the Barony of Navan. And unius Uisnig at the hill of Uisneach (597 feet above sea) in Conry parish in Rathconrath Barony.ᛋ  Geoffrey Keating in his Foras Feasa ar Éirinn fulfilled 1634 (awent by David Comyn, Patrick S. Dinneen) marketh that this was the stead of a great folk-moot or alþing:

“...mar atá Uisneach mar a mbíodh comhdháil choitcheann fhear n-Éireann ar a dtugtaoi Mórdháil Uisnigh; agus um Bealltaine do bhíodh an t-aonach soin ann mar a gcleachtaoi leo malairt a maoine is a n-earradh is a séad do dhéanamh fá seach. Do cleachtaoi leo fós iodhbartha do dhéanamh don airddia da n-adhradaois da ngairthí Béil, agus fá gnáth leo dá theine do dhéanamh i n-onóir do Béil i ngach tuaith i n-Éirinn, agus deibhléan da gach cinéal spréidhe da mbíodh san tuaith do thiomáin idir an dá theinidh mar urchosc da gcaomhna ar gach galar feadh na bliadhna soin; agus is ón teinidh sin do-níthí i n-onóir do Bhéil ghairmthear Bealltaine don fhéil ”

“... namely Uisneach, where a general meeting of the men of Ireland used to be held, which was called the Convention of Uisneach, and it was at Bealltaine that this fair took place, at which it was their custom to exchange with one another their goods, their wares, and their valuables. They also used to offer sacrifice to the chief god they adored, who was called Beil; and it was their wont to light two fires in honour of Beil in every district in Ireland, and to drive a weakling of each species of cattle that were in the district between the two fires as a preservative to shield them from all diseases during that year; and it is from that fire that was made in honour of Beil that the name of Bealltaine is given to the noble festival on which falls the day of the two Apostles, namely, Philip and James; Bealltaine, that is Beilteine, or the fire of Beil. The horse and the trappings of every chieftain who came to the great meeting of Uisneach were to be given as a tax to the king of Connaught, as the place in which Uisneach is belongs to the part of the province of Connaught given to Meath. ”ᛋ 

That a fire was linked to the worship of the god here is not to be overlooked as Uisneach was also the great hearth-stead of all Ireland:

“... Mídhe ... príomh-draoi clainne Neimheadh;

agus is leis do fadoidheadh an chéid teine i n-Éirinn iar dteacht clainne Neimheadh, agus láimh re h-Uisneach do fhadoidh í. ...”.ᛋ

“... Meath ... chief druid of the children of Neimheadh; and it is by him was kindled the first fire in Ireland, after the coming of the children of Neimheadh; and hard by Uisneach he kindled it. ”

In Ireland we also see the tokening of the "world tree" marking the middle-stead shift to a pillar-stone, what we should call in English a staple or sill.  Thus Keating writeth of:

“Agus is ann bhíodh comhroinn na gcúig gcúigeadh so, ag liag atá I n-Uisneach...”

“... the common centre of these five provinces was, at a pillar stone (liag), which is in Uisneach...” ᛋ

[And this mindeth me of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Return of the King, Book 6, Ch 9, “... so he [Sam] went to the Three-Farthing Stone, which is as near the centre of the Shire as no matter...”]

Stonehenge?

 In the Historia Regum Brittaniæ, when Merlin telleth Aurelius to “mitte pro Chorea Gigantum quæ est in Killarao monte Hiberniæ” “send for the Ettins' Ring which is in mount Killare in Ireland” he is belike speaking of Uisneach. For Killaraus is Killare, a parish in Rathconrath barony and Killare parish is the western neighbour of Conry parish where the Hill of Uisneach is!  The “Ettins' Ring” is, needless to say, our stones of Stonehenge.  And I mark Robert Mannyng Historia Britannie (transumpta per Robertum in materna lingua):
  
“þey sette a day of Parlement 7844
  Opon þe Playne of Salesbury,
  Byside the Merueille of Aumbresbyry.
  ....
  To þat playne þey come þat day,
  Of Salesbury, þe firste of May, 7856
  Many a man (wyþoute somons)
  Of þe Saxons & of þe Bretons:
   ...”

the Merueille of Aumbresbyry=Stonehenge.  Wace and another draught of Mannyng have in stead of this wording  abeie/ nunnis of Ammesberi.  First of May is Bealltaine, and a parliament is roughly the same as Mórdháil, folk-moot, alþing and so on.

Wales?

Onn goreu dyrched, 96

rhac bron teyrned.

The Ash was exalted most

before the sovereign power.

From Cad Goddeu (English: The Battle of the Trees)  in Poems from the Book of Taliesisn (1915) J. Gwenogvryn Evans. 

 

"totius Galliae media".

The Gauls had a folk moot at a stow near Chartres which is markworthily araught in De Bello Gallico Book VI, chapter xiii:

“Hi certo anni tempore in finibus Carnutum, quae regio totius Galliae media habetur, considunt in loco consecrato. Huc omnes undique, qui controversias habent, conveniunt eorumque decretis iudiciisque parent.” 

“These assemble at a fixed period of the year in a consecrated place in the territories of the Carnutes, which is reckoned the central region of the whole of Gaul. Hither all, who have disputes, assemble from every part, and submit to their decrees and determinations.”

 And Eastward?

And calling to mind that the forefathers of all the folk of the Northlands had come from the East to begin with (see here), we will also find something matching Yggdrasill there.

In India we find something of the lore of a world-tree still abiding with them.  Thus in the Mahabharata, Book 6, Bhishma Parva, §VII:

dakṣiṇena tu nīlasya niṣadhasyottareṇa ca
prāg āyato mahārāja mālyavān nāma parvataḥ
8 tataḥ paraṃ mālyavataḥ parvato gandhamādanaḥ
parimaṇḍalas tayor madhye meruḥ kanakaparvataḥ
9 ādityataruṇābhāso vidhūma iva pāvakaḥ
yojanānāṃ sahasrāṇi ṣoḍaśādhaḥ kila smṛtaḥ
10 uccaiś ca caturāśītir yojanānāṃ mahīpate
ūrdhvam antaś ca tiryak ca lokān āvṛtya tiṣṭhati
 

“To the south of Nila and to the north of Nishadha, there is a large and eternal jambu tree by the name of Sudarshana. It has fruits that provide every object of desire. It is sacred and is worshipped by the Siddhas and charanas. The eternal jambudvipa owes its naming to this. … That king of trees rises up to the heaven. …a thousand and a hundred Yojanas is the height of that prince of trees, which touches the very heavens, O king of men.”

The Parsees of Persia speak of two world-trees Harvisptokm “the many-seeded” and the Gaokerena “cow horn”. Sometimes they are said to grow out of the Vouroukasha “wide made ocean” which is the well-spring of all the earthly waters.  Urðarbrunnr?  Between these trees is also said to be a hill Hara Berezaiti “High Watchpost”, or Hugar, Hukar, earlier Hukairya “of Good Deeds” (see Yasht 10.88), from the name of one of its peaks. Many earthly mounts have the name Harborz whence Alborz in Iran, Mount Elbrus in the Caucasus and Albarez (Jebel Barez) in Kerman. Yet another name in Pahlavi for the peak of Harborz is Čagād ī dāidīg, the “Lawful Summit”, the later “Daitih peak”. And this is said to be in the heart of Airyanem Vǣjah, the later “Airan-vej” or “Eran-vej”. Thus Dādestān-ī dēnīg “Religious Decisions” chap.21 §2 (awending E.W.West):

“2. The reply is this, that thus the high-priests have said, that the Daitih peak is in Airan-vej [Eranwej], in the middle of the world; reaching unto the vicinity of that peak is that beam-shaped (dar-kerpo) spirit, the Chinwad bridge, which is thrown across from the Alburz enclosure (var) back to the Daitih peak. 3. As it were that bridge is like a beam of many sides, of whose edges (posto) there are some which are broad, and there are some which are thin and sharp; its broad sides (sukiha) are so large that its width is twenty-seven reeds (nai), and its sharp sides are so contracted (tang) that in thinness it is just like the edge of a razor. 4. And when the souls of the righteous and wicked arrive it turns to that side which is suitable to their necessities, through the great glory of the creator and the command of him who takes the just account.”

  Under the late spelling of Airyanem Vǣjah as Eranvej we read in Menog-i Khrad “Spirit of Wisdom” chap. 44 §§24 to 35 (awending E. W. West):

“24. 'It is declared that Ohrmazd created Eranvej better than other places and districts. 25. And its goodness is this, that the life of the people is three hundred years, (26) and of the oxen and sheep one hundred and fifty years. 27. Their pain and sickness, also, are little; (28) they fabricate (drujend) no lies, (29) they make no lamentation and weeping, (30) and the domination of the demon of greediness (Az) in their bodies is little. 31. When they eat one loaf among tell men, they are satisfied. 32. And in every forty years one child is born from one woman and one man. 33. Their law, also, is goodness, and their religion the primitive faith; (34) and when they die they are righteous. 35. Their spiritual chief (ratu), likewise, is Gopaito, and their lord and king is Srosh.'”

Airyanem Vǣjah is thus wonderfully akin to the Eden or Paradise of the Bible, in the midst of which is also a markworthy tree.  Thus Genesis 2, 8 to 10:

 ⁸ And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed.
⁹ And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
¹⁰ And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads.

See also Revelations 22 where Eden hath become an “holy city” (=Ásgarðr, see Gylfagining 9 “Þar næst gerðu þeir sér borg í miðjum heimi, er kölluð er Ásgarðr”.):

 ² In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.

Above: an odd "map" of Eden with the four rivers running out to the four cardinal directions from an old handwrit in Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Clm 14456, fol. 79r.

The Parsees also know of an Örn, our arn (=eagle), in the tree as Rydberg and many others have marked, they call it mərəγō saēnō ‘the bird Saēna’ (whence the simurgh),  (see Khorda Avesta, Rashnu yasht (yasht 12) §17 [here]). 

And at this tree's foot is an eft (=lizard), vazak, which is somewhat akin to the Northern Nídhöggr (see Bundahishn Chapitle 18   [here]).

 And Southward?

But, nearer to home I mark how the Romans' Virgil writeth about the æsculus in his Georgics II, lines 291 to 297 (awending J. W. MacKail):

“aesculus in primis, quae quantum vertice ad auras
aetherias, tantum radice in Tartara tendit.
Ergo non hiemes illam, non flabra neque imbres
convellunt; inmota manet, multosque nepotes,
multa virum volvens durando saecula vincit. 295
Tum fortis late ramos et bracchia pandens
huc illuc, media ipsa ingentem sustinet umbram.”

“the winter-oak beyond all, who, as high as her top scales the air skyward,
strikes at root as deep to hell:
therefore not storms nor blasts nor rains uproot her;
she abides unstirred, and outlives many children's children,
and sees roll by her many generations of men;
and stretching wide to right and left her strong boughs and arms,
uprears the mass of her own enfolding shade.”

England?

And lastly, but not at all the least, I think on what is written of the runestave called æsc in the Old English rune leeth.  Doth it not look to a belief in a world-tree much like Yggdrasill among our own forefathers?

ᚫ

[æsc] biþ oferheah eldum dyre

stiþ on staþule stede rihte hylt

ðeah him feohtan on firas moniȝe.

Ash-tree is over-high, to men dear

strong on his staddle a stead rightly held

though against him fight many men.

The “ðeah him feohtan on firas moniȝe” can be outfolded from Grímnismál 35 (awending Bellows):

Askr Yggdrasils | drýgir erfiði
meira en menn viti;
hjörtr bítr ofan, | en á hliðu fúnar,
skerðir Níðhöggr neðan.

Ash Yggdrasill | suffers anguish,
More than men know of:
The stag bites above; | on the side it rotteth,
And Nídhöggr gnaws from below.

I mark that the Old English Rune Leeth æsc is called “eldum dyre” “dear to men”, which is no little thing to say of a tree; and it is evened in the same leeth only by dæȝ which is there called “deore mannum”.   That dæȝ is a token of the sun see here.


If, bearing in mind as above so below, all earthly þing and doom-steads must be evenledgings of the þing and doom-stead of the gods which in the Edda is under the ash Yggdrasill.  Then it is markworth that some English Hundreds met by ash trees. And all to call to their minds the gods above and their deemings and dooms.

 

Bruton Hundred in Somerset (and from which a Cat's Ash Hundred was later taken out), The Victorian County History hath this to say of Bruton Hundred:

“In 1632 lawdays were held at Bruton and tourns at 'Cats Ashes'. ....In the earlier 18th century the tourn was said to be 'commonly held' at Catsash, 'an ash tree growing in the corner of a field by three crossways near Bruton'.”

A tourn is a law-day held before a sheriff.

  
Mansbridge Hundred in Hampshire The Victorian County History :

 

“The hundred court was customarily held under an ash-tree in Swaythling in South Stoneham at Martintide.”

 

Of Easebourne Hundred, Sussex, Olof S. Anderson English Hundred-Names (1934-39) doth write:

“According to PNSx (p. 15), the hundred-court of Easebourne was held under an ash-tree in Midhurst in 1279.”

PNSx is the The Place-Names of Sussex, A.  Mawer, & F.M. Stenton (2 vols), Cambridge U.P. 1929 & 1930.

Of the Hundred of St. Albans in Hertfordshire Anderson again, Deal 3, lf. 28:

“The hundred court was held, from a very early date, under the ash tree in the court of the monastery, and continued to be held there after the Dissolution.”

From the Calendar of Patent Rolls for 1355 (Dec. 8th. Westminster):

 

Broadwater Hundred, once the two Hundreds of Broadwater, Hertfordshire:

“In 1390 (Ipm) the sheriff's tourn was held here, at Bradwater Asshe, clearly an ash-tree, which marked the spot where the hundred court was held...”

Ipm is the Inquisitio Post Mortem.

There is a Grumbald's Ash Hundred in Gloucestershire. Although the stead is unknown we know that it met at an ash from its name. Doddington Ash however was brooked as  meeting stead for this Hundred.  The Hundred of Crowthorn (and Minety), notwithstanding its name, latterly met at an ash:

“The name is now lost, but in 1400 the courts were held 'at a certain ash-tree near Stratton', NW. of Cirencester, a reminiscence of which seems to remain in the name of the COURT HILL in Stratton, applied to the rising ground between the Gloucester and Daglingworth roads, from whence there were crossroads to Baunton and Coates (Bristol and Glouc. Arch. Soc. 9. 333). ”

And a Hundred called Ash in Worcestershire later in Halfshire Hundred. And there is Broxash Hundred in Herefordshire made from two earlier Hundreds. Whilst in Greytree Hundred lay the old Bromsash Hundred, but seemingly the older Bromsash is not the later Greytree.

Other kinds of tree at which the law-days of Hundreds met, might be thought of here, if the tokening lay in the tree itself rather than in the kind of tree.   

  World Axletree.

 “ ...strong as the axletree
On which heaven rides, ...”. 

The World Tree blendeth with the idea of the axe or axle-shaft of the heaven thus King Ælfred's awending of Bœthius’ De Consolatione Philosophiæ chap. 39, §3:

 

“hwa ne wundraþ þætte sume tunglu habbaþ scyrtran hwyrft ðonne sume habban, swa swa tunglu habbaþ þe we hataþ wænes ðisla, for þy hi habbaþ swa sceortne ymbhwyrft forþi hi sint swa neah ðam norþende þære eaxe ðe eall þes rodor onhwerfþ.” 

 “Who wondereth not that some stars have a shorter wheel than others have, even as those stars that we call the wain's shaft, for that they have so short wheel as they are so near the north end of the axle that all this heaven wendeth.”

This for Bœthius’ Latin (see book 4 metrum 5), awending H. R. James:

 Si quis Arcturi sidera nescit
Propinqua summo cardine labi,
Cur regat tardus plaustra Bootes
...

  Legem stupebit aetheris alti.

...

Who knoweth not how near the pole  

Bootes' course doth go,  

Must marvel by what heavenly law  

He moves his Wain so slow;  

...

 And thus William Shakespeare Troilus and Cressida Act I, scene 3:

“ ...strong as the axletree
On which heaven rides, ...”.

The Northmen seemlessly blend the two, thus Yggdrasill is called þollur (see Völuspá 20), which, although it can mean a (fir) tree, may also, like the English word thole, can mean a wooden pin (see Hymiskviða 13). The Old Saxons as Rudolf of Fulda writeth in his Translatio Sancti Alexandri chapitle 3 knew of earthly evenledgings (=copies) of “irminsul” which word they understood as the “universalis columna, quasi sustinens omnia”.  Old High German glosses given by Jacob Grimm Teutonic Mythology I. VI, lf. 115 have ‘irmansuli’ for pyramides, and ‘irmansul’ for colossus, altissima columna.  If the “irminsul” which was fordone in 772 (see Annales Fuldenses) was at or near “Eresburgum castrum” which was taken the same year.  And if this “Eresburgum castrum” is rightly said to be Ober Marsberg on the Diemel in Engern (see  Cosmographia (1545)), then it is not that far from Bad Lippspringe which is oddly writen up by Velleius Paterculus:

“Pietas sua Caesarem paene obstructis hieme Alpibus in urbem traxit, at tutela imperii eum veris initio reduxit in Germaniam, in cuius mediis finibus ad caput Lupiae fluminis hiberna digrediens princeps locaverat.”

“Caesar was drawn to the city by his filial affection, though the Alps were almost blocked by winter's snows; but the defence of the empire brought him at the beginning of spring back to Germany, where he had on his departure pitched his winter camp at the source of the river Lippe, in the very heart of the country, the first Roman to winter there.”

It is fyrwit that it should have been said that there was a ‘sýl’ in Jerusalem marking the middle of the earth thus An Old English Martyrology (MS. B. [Cod. Cotton. Jul. A x, p. 44a] ) looking to Adomnan’s ‘De Locis Sanctis’ :

“ June 24. Solstitia.
   On þone ylcan dæg byð solstitia,  þæt is on ure geþeode sungihte, forðon þe seo sunne standeð on mydre lyfte, swa sanctus Arculfus sagað þæt hé gesáwe on Hierusalem áne sýle on myddre  þære ceastre, seo wæs aseted on þære stowe, þær se deada man acwycode þa him man dryhtnes róde ofersette.    þonne gelympeð þæt wundorlīce on þæs sumeres sungihte on mydne dæg, þonne seō sunne byð on þæs heofones mydle, þonne nafað seō sýl  nǽnige sceade. þonne þæs sungihtes beōð þrý dagas forð āurnen,  ond se dæg byð hwene scyrtra, þonne hafað seō sýl ǽrest lytle sceade; ond  swá þa dagas forð on sceortiað, swá byð þære sýle sceade lengra. þeós sýl cýðeð þæt Hierusalem seo veaster ys geseted on myddre eorðan,  ond heo is cweden umbilicus terrae, þæt ys eorðan nafola, forðam on mydne sumor on mydne dæg scyneð seo sunne of myddum heofone gelýce on æghwylce healfe ymbe þa syle, seo standeð on mydre eorðan.” 

“June 24. Solstitia.
On the same day is Solstitia, that is solstice in our language, because the sun stands in the midst of the air, as St. Arculfus says that he saw in Jerusalem a column in the midst of the town, which was placed on the spot where the dead man came to life again when the cross of the Lord was put upon him. Then this wonderful thing happens at the solstice of summer at noon : when the sun is in the centre of heaven, then the column has no shadow. When three days have passed since the solstice, and the day is a little shorter, then the column has at first a small shadow, and as the days go on shortening, the shadow of the column becomes longer.  This column testifies that the town of Jerusalem is situated in the centre of the earth, and it is called umbilicus terrae, that is the earth's navel, because in the middle of the summer the sun shines at noon from the centre of heaven equally on each side of the column that stands in the centre of the earth.”

Eastward Again.

In the Rigvedā Book I, hymn 59  (see also I.143.4. II.3.7; III.5.9) we find the ‘nābhās pṛthivyās’ “earth’s centre” linked with a ‘sthūṇus’ sul (=pillar) and fire:

  “vayā idaghne aghnayaste anye tve viśve amṛtā mādayante | vaiśvānara nābhirasi kṣitīnāṃ sthūṇeva janānupamid yayantha ||
mūrdhā divo nābhiraghniḥ pṛthivyā athābhavadaratī rodasyoḥ | taṃ tvā devāso.ajanayanta devaṃ vaiśvānara jyotiridāryāya [dative sing.]||”

“1 THE other fires are, verily, thy branches; the Immortals all rejoice in thee, O Agni.
Centre art thou, Vaisvanara, of the people, sustaining men like a deep-founded pillar.
2 The forehead of the sky, earth's centre, Agni became the messenger of earth and heaven.
Vaisvanara, the Deities produced thee, a God, to be a light unto the Arya.”

The Sanskrit word ‘nābhās’ is akin to our word nave (“hub of a wheel”) and navel from PIE *(o)nobh-.   I also mark from the Laws of Manu 3.89:

“...in the centre of the house let him place a Bali for Brahman and for Vastoshpati (the lord of the dwelling[=Agni]) conjointly.”


W. R. Lethaby Architecture Mysticism And Myth with illustrations by the Author New York: Macmillan & Co., 1892C.E. Chapter IV. At The Centre Of The Earth, lvs. 85 to 86:

“...In India the great iron pillar of Delhi, standing amidst the ruins of the old capital, was set up in the fourth century; later, in the twelfth century, the great Mohammedan Mosque of the Imperial City was built round it as the exact middle point of its vast court.  The pillar commemorated the power of a Raja who, as the inscription reads, 'obtained with his own arm an undivided sovereignty over the earth.' A Holy Braman assured a Raja of the eighth century that the pillar had been driven so deeply into the earth that it rested on the head of Vasuki, the serpent king, who supports the world, and consequently had become immovable, whereby the dominion was insured for ever to the dynasty of its founder as long as the pillar stood. The incredulous Raja ordered the monument to be dug up, when it was found to be reddened with the blood of the serpent king (Hunter's Gaz. of India). We have here probably a Braman centre in opposition to the sacred site of the Buddhists. In Southern India the Temple of Mandura is the centre of the Tamil people; here in the inmost sanctuary a rock, symbol of Siva, crops out of the floor. 'Its roots are said to be in the centre of the earth, and to have been there since the Creation.' Here the kings were taken when about to die (Clements Markham). ...”.

 

This mindeth us of Apollo's slaying of the Python at Delphi.  


Southward Again.

What might be thought of the irmen - sul (=great - pillar), is not unlike what the Greeks and Romans wrote of Atlas.  Thus Virgil, Aeneid Book 8 (awending Theodore C. Williams.  Boston. Houghton Mifflin Co. 1910 ):

…maximus Atlas 136
edidit, aetherios umero qui sustinet orbes

 

...great Atlas, he
whose shoulder carries the vast orb of heaven.

… Atlas, 140
... caeli qui sidera tollit.

…Atlas who sustains
the weight of starry skies.

Ovid, Metamorphoses 6. line 172 : 

 “... maximus Atlas
..., aetherium qui fert cervicibus axem; 175

 “That great giant, Atlas, whose shoulders bear the circling sky.”

And this looking to Homer, Odyssey 1. lines 52 to 54 (awend. A. T. Murray):

Ἄτλαντος θυγάτηρ ὀλοόφρονος, ὅς τε θαλάσσης line 52
πάσης βένθεα οἶδεν, ἔχει δέ τε κίονας αὐτὸς
μακράς, αἳ γαῖάν τε καὶ οὐρανὸν ἀμφὶς ἔχουσιν.

“of Atlas of baneful mind, who knows the depths of every sea, and himself holds the tall pillars which keep earth and heaven apart.” 

As κίονας is manifold “staples” (=pillars), this lore about Atlas was to begin with more akin to the Northern belief that four dwarrows or dwarves uphold the heaven (see Gylfaginning 8) than of Yggdrasill.  And indeed the two things are at odds.

But Hesiod in his Theogony lines 744 to 750 (awend. Hugh G. Evelyn-White) would seem to have another thought which was the one the Greeks and Romans mostly took up later:

… Νυκτὸς δ᾽ ἐρεβεννῆς οἰκία δεινὰ
ἕστηκεν νεφέλῃς κεκαλυμμένα κυανέῃσιν. 745
τῶν πρόσθ᾽ Ἰαπετοῖο πάις ἔχει οὐρανὸν εὐρὺν
ἑστηὼς κεφαλῇ τε καὶ ἀκαμάτῃσι χέρεσσιν
ἀστεμφέως, ὅθι Νύξ τε καὶ Ἡμέρη ἆσσον ἰοῦσαι
ἀλλήλας προσέειπον, ἀμειβόμεναι μέγαν οὐδὸν
χάλκεον: 750

“There stands the awful home of murky Night wrapped in dark clouds. In front of it the son of Iapetus stands immovably upholding the wide heaven upon his head and unwearying hands, where Night and Day draw near and greet one another as they pass the great threshold of bronze: ...”

"son of Iapetus" is Atlas.
 
From Græco-Roman myth we also might think here that Hercules once took Atlas’ stead, and it is fyrwit therefore that the Old English awending of Orosius' Historia 1, 1 awendeth ‘Herculis columnae’ as ‘Ercoles sýla’.  “sýla” maybe brooked here with some minning of Irminsul?

Hanging over from the time when Atlas was maybe only thought of as the westernmost staple holding up the heaven, Atlas is often said to be a hill in the West.  But Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 2. 5. 11  rightledgeth this mistaken belief and hath Atlas (Ἄτλας)    set in Hyperborea “...ἀλλ᾽ ἐπὶ τοῦ Ἄτλαντος ἐν Ὑπερβορέοις: ...” “...but on Atlas among the Hyperboreans. ...”.  The Hyperboreans of Hyperborea Scythia Ὑπερβορέα Σκυθία  (see Suda under Abaris) live about the “cardo mundi,” (see Pliny  Natural Histories, Book IV.XII) that is the North Pole.  Thus Felix Martianus Capella, in his De nuptiis Philologiæ et Mercurii et de septem artibus liberalibus libri novum  Book VI (Geometry):

“Post eosdem montes trans Aquilonem Hyperborei, apud quos mundi axis continua motione torquetur, gens moribus, prolixitate vitae, deorum cultu, aeris clementia , semestri die, fine etiam habitationis humanae praedicanda.”  “[664] Behind these mountains [the Rhipaean] and beyond the north wind are the Hyperboreans, in whose vicinity the axis of the world continually rotates-a people remarkable for their customs, length of life, manner of worship, benignity of climate, six-month long day, and their abode at the limit of human habitation.”
 [The Marriage of Mercury and Philology awent by William Harris Stahl and Richard Johnson with E.L. Burge, Columbia University Press, 1977C.E. – Book 6, §664, lf. 248].

Atlas is the father of the   Ἀτλaντίδες or Pleiades Πλειάδες one of whom Electra Ἠλέκτρα, (whom Ovid nameth Atlantis ἡ Ἀτλαντίς) would seem to have a name that echoeth the Greek word ἤλεκτρον, electron, that is amber or "ambre jaune"  a Northern thing to the Greeks.  

It is markworthy that Delphi was said to have been founded by the Hyperboreans Olen (Ὠλήν) and others (see Pausanias Guide to Greece 10.5.7).  This is to link the two middle-steads.  One the middle of the earth, the other the middle marked by the North or Pole Star overhead.  It is odd why the Hyperboreans are said to live a blessed life (see Pindar Tenth Pythian Ode, lines 37 to 44, Natural Histories, Book IV. XII) which is not at all how things in the far north of the world now.   But was it true to say at one time?  Many have thought so.  Julius Evola in his writings rather saw such polar tokening which is to be found throughout the northern half of the world as showing a "recollection of a primordial Nordic civilisation and fatherland" (Pagan Imperialism, and see also Revolt Against the Modern World (1995) chap. 24, lvs. 188 to 194). But after all the time that hath gone by between these far off things and now, they are hard to speak of today.  Leaving what Evola calls "real meaning" aside then, and looking only at the "spiritual", we cannot however but think that the blissful Hyperborea is  one in its tokening with the wortyard of the Hesperides also known to the Greeks, and always bestead near Atlas; and that it is one and the same as the ‘Airyanəm Vaējah’   of the Parsees.   And I mark that this last was thought to have once been the best of lands but that it was fordone by winter.  That they underlie both the Bible's "Eden", as we have marked above, and also the "mountains of Ararat" of Genesis 8:4 seemeth likely. And ‘Airyanəm Vaējah’ itself became understood as one with Persia, which is as much in the middle of the Old World as anywhere nearby.  

Athena’s snake on the acropolis at Athens is one with the Python killed by Apollo at Delphi and the drake that warded the apples of Hesperides near Atlas which should be “among the Hyperboreans”.  And all are truly no more than tokens of the starry drake (Draco) that is found about the Pole Star in heaven.

Hills and Mounts.

Be that as it may we can also follow the token another way.  Blending with the belief of a world-mount  (see C. S. Lewis' “Secret Hill” which is the evenworth of “world ash-tree” ) we have the pyramid and ziggurat and towns built about an arx or acropolis.  The towers of Hindu temples which are meant to be tokens of (five peaked) Mount Meru the gods home on earth and at its middle-stead; the Buddhists’  ‘stupa’ (“heap”); the ‘pagoda’  (a word from the Parsees' tongue ‘butkada’ (‘but’ idol + ‘kada’ temple, dwelling)); the church steeple or  belltower and  the mosque’s ‘minaret’.  

The Mahabodhi temple in Bodhgaya, India. The Bodhi tree is on the left. ᛋ

Bodhi tree at Bodhgaya where Siddhartha Gautama won his own kind of wisdom (bodhi), is in the Jatakas, said to be the navel of the earth (puthuvinābhi) lies at this spot (J.iv.233),  and no other stead can bear the Buddha's weight (J.iv.229).  The Buddhist King Asoka visited Bodh Gaya and built the first Mahabodhi temple there with a diamond throne (called the Vajrasana) to mark the spot of the Buddha's enlightenment. The building seen there today dateth from the 5th–6th yearhundreds however. 

Steeple (O.E. stipel) indeed is sometimes formenged with staple  (O.E. stapel), another old word for a pillar, and Dunstable has much tokening here.

 Market Crosses.

Some market crosses looketh back to the sul or staple, whilst others are blended with the world-mount.  In The Book of John Maundevile we read:

“For whoso wole do eny thyng for the which he wole be knowe opynli, he wole do hit crie opynli in the myddel place of a cité other of a toune, so that hit may be knowe to all parties of that cité other of that toune.”

And the “myddel place of a cité other of a toune” is where the market cross is set up.  

Ilchester, Somerset: The Market Cross, by Nigel Cox ᛋ

Market Cross and Town Hall, Martock, Somerset by Ken Grainger ᛋ

Such crosses were long minned as halidoms in the old belief, thus from the 1597 law-days for witchcraft at Aberdeen I mark the following from IV. Dittay Against Thomas Leyis lf.97:  

 
“IMPRIMIS, Wpoun Hallowewin last bypast, att tuelff houris at ewin or thairby, thow the said Thomas Leyis, accompaneit withe vmquhill Jonett
Wischert, Issobell Coky, Issobell Manteithe, Kathren Mitchell, relict of vmquhill Charles Dwn, litster, sorceraris and witches, withe ane gryit number of vtheris witches, come to the mercatt and fische croce of Aberdene, wnder the conduct and gyding of the Dewill present withe yow, all in company, playing befoir yow on his kynd of instrumentis : Ye all dansit about baythe the saidis croces, and the meill mercatt, ane lang space of tyme; in the quhilk Dewillis dans, thow the said Thomas was formest and led the ring, ...”

And IX. DITTAY AGAINST ISOBEL COCKIE. lf.115:

“...thow... com on Halow ewin last, betuixt tuell and ane houris at nycht, to the mercat and fishe croces of Aberdene, and meill mercat of the sam, [and] thair, accumpaniet with the Dewill, your maister, dansit ane lang space about the saidis crocis and meill mercat. In the quhilk danse, thow was the ring ledar, nixt Thomas Leyis; and be caws the Dewill playit nocht so melodiousle and weill as thow crewit, thow tuik his instrument owt of his moutht, than tuik him on the chaftis therwith, and plaid thi self theron to thi haill cumpanie.”

And XXXIV. DITTAY AGAINST BESSIE THOM. lf.167:

“ITEM, Thow art indyttit as a notorious witche, in sa mekill as vpon All hallowevin last bypast, at xij houris in the nicht, or thairby, thow com to the Fische Croce of this burght, vnder the conduct of Sathan thy maister, playing befoir the on his forme of instrumentis, and thair, accumpaniet with thy devilische companyeounis and factioun, transfformit in vther lyknesse, sum in haris, sum in cattis, and sum in vther similitudes, ye all dansit about the Fische Croce and Meillmercat for a long space; of the quhilk danse vmquhill Thomas Leis was ringleader, ...”.


 The Fish Cross at the east end of Castlegate in Aberdeen was taken down in 1742.  The Market, or mercat, cross in the west end of castlegate is from 1686 a new one being set up then. The Meill Mercatt, or Meal Market, was on the north side of Aberdeen.

Tokening?

Why all this about stocks and stones?  The world ash-tree is an old token for the mythic middle-stead of the world, "the still point of a turning world",  the high stead from which the gods wield all else.  It is truly outside of time and the goal of the wisest of mankind in all elds.  The stead from which they, along with all other things came (thus it is linked to the navel), and to which they must all go back again.   Thus:

“Masons are taught that at the center of the circle, they “cannot err.” ...”
[T. Churton The Mysteries of John the Baptist (2012) chap. 2, lf.22] 

The rite of making kings by sitting, or standing, upon a stone is looking toward this.  Thus Gesta Danorum Book 1, chap. 1 §2 (awending Elton):

“Lecturi regem veteres affixis humo saxis insistere suffragiaque promere consueverant, subiectorum lapidum firmitate facti constantiam ominaturi.”

“The ancients, when they were to choose a king, were wont to stand on stones planted in the ground, and to proclaim their votes, in order to foreshadow from the steadfastness of the stones that the deed would be lasting. ” 

The making of a king of the Swedes on the Stones of Mora in Lagga parish in Attundaland from Olaus Magnus' Historia de Gentibus Septentrionalibus (1555). ᛋ

 

Coronation Stone, Kingtson-upon-Thames, Surrey ᛋ

 

This a rite borrowed undergone by both kings and priests, for this is a rite of making a priest-king, thus Plutarch writeth in his Isis and Osiris 9 (354b-c) (awending F.C Babbitt):

“οἱ δὲ βασιλεῖς ἀπεδείκνυντο μὲν ἐκ τῶν ἱερέων ἢ τῶν μαχίμων, τοῦ μὲν δι᾽ ἀνδρείαν τοῦ δὲ διὰ σοφίαν γένους ἀξίωμα καὶ τιμὴν ἔχοντος. ὁ δ᾽ ἐκ μαχίμων ἀποδεδειγμένος εὐθὺς ἐγίγνετο τῶν ἱερέων καὶ μετεῖχε τῆς φιλοσοφίας, ἐπικεκρυμμένης τὰ πολλὰ μύθοις καὶ λόγοις ἀμυδρὰς ἐμφάσεις τῆς ἀληθείας καὶ διαφάσεις ἔχουσιν, ὥσπερ ἀμέλει καὶ παραδηλοῦσιν αὐτοὶ πρὸ τῶν ἱερῶν τὰς σφίγγας ἐπιεικῶς ἱστάντες, ὡς αἰνιγματώδη σοφίαν τῆς θεολογίας αὐτῶν ἐχούσης."

"The kings were appointed from the priests or from the military class, since the military class had eminence and honour because of valour, and the priests because of wisdom. But he who was appointed from the military class was at once made one of the priests and a participant in their philosophy, which, for the most part, is veiled in myths and in words containing dim reflexions and adumbrations of the truth, as they themselves intimate beyond question by appropriately placing sphinxes before their shrines to indicate that their religious teaching has in it an enigmatical sort of wisdom."

And thus Siddhartha Gautama seated under the Bodhi tree at Bodhgaya is no longer only a kṣatriyaḥ (षत्रियः) but also a brāhmaṇaḥ (ब्राह्मणः) of a high kind, a buddhaḥ "buddha" (बुद्धः ). 

Mara's onslaught on the Buddha (an aniconic representation: the Buddha is only symbolized by his throne), 2nd century, Amaravati, India. ᛋ

Thus the words of Isaiah 14:13-14 from the King James Version (KJV):

¹³ For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north:
¹⁴ I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.

Hliðskjálf? Mark also the "in the sides of the North".  Julius Evola writeth of the "Polar Symbolism" underlying kingship (see Revolt Against the Modern World (1995) chap. 3,  lvs. 16 to 20), and whilst aware of more, his words nevertheless seldom go beyond a pæan of an ideal earthly kingship. But the rite of king-making is borrowed from the old mystery schools.  Thus Plato Euthydemus 277d-e:

“ὦ Κλεινία, μὴ θαύμαζε εἴ σοι φαίνονται ἀήθεις οἱ λόγοι. ἴσως γὰρ οὐκ αἰσθάνῃ οἷον ποιεῖτον τὼ ξένω περὶ σέ: ποιεῖτον δὲ ταὐτὸν ὅπερ οἱ ἐν τῇ τελετῇ τῶν Κορυβάντων, ὅταν τὴν θρόνωσιν ποιῶσιν περὶ τοῦτον ὃν ἂν μέλλωσι τελεῖν. καὶ γὰρ ἐκεῖ χορεία τίς ἐστι καὶ παιδιά, εἰ ἄρα καὶ τετέλεσαι: καὶ νῦν[277ε] τούτω οὐδὲν ἄλλο ἢ χορεύετον περὶ σὲ καὶ οἷον ὀρχεῖσθον παίζοντε, ὡς μετὰ τοῦτο τελοῦντε. ”

“[277d] ... Cleinias, do not be surprised that these arguments seem strange to you; for perhaps you do not discern what our two visitors are doing to you. They are acting just like the celebrants of the Corybantic rites, when they perform the enthronement of the person whom they are about to initiate. There, as you know, if you have been through it, they have dancing and merrymaking: so here these two [277e] are merely dancing about you and performing their sportive gambols with a view to your subsequent initiation. ”

[Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 3 awent by W.R.M. Lamb. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1967.] 

Dio Chrysostom Twelfth Discourse §33:

“ σχεδὸν οὖν ὅμοιον ὥσπερ εἴ τις ἄνδρα Ἕλληνα ἢ βάρβαρον μυοίη παραδοὺς εἰς μυστικόν τινα οἶκον ὑπερφυῆ κάλλει καὶ μεγέθει, πολλὰ μὲν ὁρῶντα μυστικὰ θεάματα, πολλῶν δὲ ἀκούοντα τοιούτων φωνῶν, σκότους τε καὶ φωτὸς ἐναλλὰξ αὐτῷ φαινομένων, ἄλλων τε μυρίων γιγνομένων, ἔτι δὲ {εἰ} καθάπερ εἰώθασιν ἐν τῷ καλουμένῳ θρονισμῷ καθίσαντες τοὺς μυουμένους οἱ τελοῦντες κύκλῳ περιχορεύειν·...”.

“ So it is very much the same as if anyone were to place a man, a Greek or a barbarian, in some mystic shrine of extraordinary beauty and size to be initiated, where he would see many mystic sights and hear many mystic voices, where light and darkness would appear to him alternately, and a thousand other things would occur; and further, if it should be just as in the rite called enthronement, where the inducting priests are wont to seat the novices and then dance round and round them — ...”.

Theon of Smyrna On Mathematics Useful for the Understanding of Plato :

“Μυήσεως δὲ μέρη. τὸ  μὲν  προηγούμενον  καθαρμός·  οὔτε  γὰρ  ἅπασι  τοῖς  βουλομένοις μετ|ουσία  μυστηρίων ἐστίν, ἀλλ’ εἰσὶν  οὓς  αὐτῶν  εἴργε|σθαι  προαγορεύεται, οἷον τοὺς χεῖρας μὴ καθαρὰς καὶ | φωνὴν ἀξύνετον ἔχοντας, καὶ  αὐτοὺς  δὲ  τοὺς  μὴ  εἰργο|μένους  ἀνάγκη  καθαρμοῦ  τινος  πρότερον τυχεῖν. μετὰ | δὲ τὴν κάθαρσιν δευτέρα ἐστὶν ἡ τῆς τελετῆς παράδοσις· |τρίτη δὲ <ἡ> ἐπονομαζομένη ἐποπτεία· τετάρτη δέ, ὃ | δὴ καὶ τέλος τῆς ἐποπτείας, ἀνάδεσις καὶ στεμμάτων | ἐπίθεσις, ὥστε καὶ ἑτέροις, ἅς τις παρέλαβε  τελετάς, |  παραδοῦναι  δύνασθαι,  δᾳδουχίας  τυχόντα  ἢ  ἱεροφαντίας | ἤ τινος ἄλλης ἱερωσύνης· πέμπτη δὲ ἡ ἐξ αὐτῶν περι| γενομένη κατὰ τὸ θεοφιλὲς καὶ θεοῖς συνδίαιτον εὐδαι|μονία. ...”.

“There are five parts in initation [μυήσεως]: the first is the preliminary purification [καθαρμός], because participation in the mysteries [μυστηρίων] must not be indiscriminately given to all those who desire it, but there are some aspirants whom the harbinger of the path separates out, such as those of impure hands, or whose speech lacks prudence; but even those who are not rejected must be subjected to certain purifications. After this purification comes the tradition of sacred things (which is initiation [τελετῆς] proper). In the third place comes the ceremony which is called the full vision [ἐποπτεία] (the highest degree of the initiation). The fourth stage, which is the end and the goal of the full vision, is the binding of the head and the placement of the crowns [στεμμάτων], in order that he who has received the sacred things, becomes capable in his turn of transmitting the tradition to others, either through the dadouchos (the torch bearing ceremonies), or through hierophantism (interpretation of sacred things), or by some other priestly work. Finally the fifth stage, which is the crowning of all that has preceeded it, is to be a friend of the Diety, and to enjoy the felicity which consists of living in a familiar commerce with him. ...”.

 [awending Robert and Deborah Lawlor (1979) lvs. 8 to 9]

 Those who dance about betoken those souls still bound up in the antimber of the world, whilst the initiate seated on the throne, or seated/standing on a stone, in the middle of these is a token of the soul found worthy and brought out of the foregoing to be with the gods.   Such a stone is, needless to say a kind of "Philosopher's Stone" that awends base things into "gold".

At length we should understand this as undoing in some way the tearing asunder that Dionysus underwent in the beginning.  It is, so to speak, the welcoming back home of a long lost deal (=part) of himself that hath come back to betheed (=join) what abideth of the god forever beyond all.  For Dionysus is king, thus Proclus’ Scholia on Plato’s Cratylus (awending Thomas Taylor): 

“Διόνυσος <ὁ> τελευταῖος θεῶν βασιλείῳ … ὁ γὰρ πατὴρ ἱδρύει τε αὐτὸν έν τῷ βασιλείῳ θρόνῳ καὶ ἐγχειρίζει τὸ σκῆπτρον καὶ βασιλέα ποιεῖ τῶν ἐγκοσμίων ἁπάντων θεῶν·

 ‘κλῦτε, θεοί· τόν δ᾽ ὔμμιν ἐγὼ βασιλῆα τίθημι’ (Orph. frg 190)

 λέγει πρὸς τοὺς νέους θεοὺς ὁ Ζεύς.”

“Dionysus … is the last king of the gods … For the Father establishes him in the royal throne, puts into his hand the sceptre, and makes him the king of all the mundane gods.

‘Here me you gods I place over you a king.’

 Says Jupiter to the junior gods.”

Farewell.