At the centre of it all was a tree, the Tree, that spanned all the worlds and joined them together. A great ash, its name was Yggdrasill, literally the ‘Steed of the Terrible One’. The latter was one of the many names for Odin and a hint of the tree’s wider properties, for it did not just connect the realms but also served as a road between the realms for those who knew how to ride it. That the first man was made of the same substance may not have been coincidence, implying some subtle quality of humanity that infused the universe.
