Worlds & Myths

A deck by Zev Mbeki · 7 cards

Yggdrasil

Yggdrasil is an immense and central sacred tree in Norse cosmology. Around it exists all else, including the Nine Worlds.

Ragnarök

In Norse mythology, Ragnarök is a foretold series of impending events, including a great battle in which numerous great Norse mythological figures will perish ; it will entail a catastrophic series of natural disasters, including the burning of the world, and culminate in the submersion of the world underwater. After these events, the world will rise again, cleansed and fertile, the surviving and returning gods will meet, and the world will be repopulated by two human survivors, Líf and Lífþrasir. Ragnarök is an important event in Norse mythology and has been the subject of scholarly discourse and theory in the history of Germanic studies.

Valhalla

In Norse mythology, Valhalla is described as a majestic hall located in Asgard and presided over by the god Odin. There were five possible realms the soul could travel to after death. The first was Fólkvangr, ruled by the goddess Freyja. The second was Hel, ruled by Hel, Loki's daughter. The third was that of the goddess Rán. The fourth was the Burial Mound where the dead could live. The fifth and last realm was Valhalla, ruled by Odin as a hall of fallen heroes. The masses of those killed in combat, along with various legendary Germanic heroes and kings, live in Valhalla until Ragnarök, when they will march out of its many doors to fight in aid of Odin against the jötnar. Valhalla was idealized in Viking culture and gave the Scandinavians a widespread cultural belief that there is nothing more glorious than death in battle. The belief in a Viking paradise and eternal life in Valhalla with Odin may have given the Vikings a violent edge over the other raiders of their time period.

Asgard

Asgard is a location associated with the gods in Nordic mythology. It appears in several Old Norse sagas and mythological texts, including the Eddas. It has also been suggested to be referred to indirectly in some of these sources. It is described as the fortified home of the Æsir gods and is often associated with gold imagery and contains other locations known in Nordic mythology such as Valhöll, Iðavöllr and Hlidskjálf. It is the equivalent of Mount Olympus of Greek Mythology.

Midgard

In Germanic cosmology, Midgard is the name for Earth inhabited by and known to humans in early Germanic cosmology. The Old Norse form plays a notable role in Norse cosmology.

Poetic Edda

The Poetic Edda is the modern name for an untitled collection of Old Norse anonymous narrative poems in alliterative verse. It is distinct from the closely related Prose Edda, although both works are seminal to the study of Old Norse poetry.

Prose Edda

The Prose Edda, also known as the Younger Edda, Snorri's Edda or, historically, simply as Edda, is an Old Norse textbook written in Iceland during the early 13th century. The work is often considered to have been to some extent written, or at least compiled, by the Icelandic scholar, lawspeaker, and historian Snorri Sturluson c. 1220. It is considered the fullest and most detailed source for modern knowledge of Norse mythology, the body of myths of the North Germanic peoples, and draws from a wide variety of sources, including versions of poems that survive into today in a collection known as the Poetic Edda.