Skald of the North
The SkaldLjóðasmiðr (Weaver of Verse)
The Twilight of the Gods
From the Creation of the Nine Realms to Ragnarök
The Sagas of the Sea Kings
Ragnar Lodbrok, Fairhair, and the Bloodaxe
The Ocean Explorers & Vinland
Erik the Red & Leif the Lucky into the Western Mist
"I know where Odin's eye is hidden / Deep in the famed Well of Mimir; / Mead he drinks every morning / From Valfather's pledge."
The Sacred Roots of Yggdrasil
How do we know this?
Evidence for The Sacred Roots of Yggdrasil
The choices are an imaginative retelling. This source note concerns the underlying myth, not the invented alternative outcomes.
Mythological accountA story about the divine or cosmic world, attested as literature rather than a historical event.
Odin pledges an eye at Mímir’s well beneath Yggdrasil.
The Prose Edda preserves this account and distinguishes Mímir’s well from the Well of Urd. The linked edition is Blackwell’s English translation of a medieval literary source.
What remains uncertain: This is evidence for a mythological tradition, not independent proof of a divine event or a single uniform Norse belief.
- The Prose Edda: Yggdrasil, Mímir’s Well and the Norns (opens in a new tab)
Project Gutenberg, ebook 14726 · Medieval literary source in translation
Snorri Sturluson; I. A. Blackwell translation, in the 1906 Eddas collection.
Section 16, “Of the Ash Yggdrasill, Mimir’s Well, and the Norns or Destinies”, pp. 270–272.
- The Prose Edda: Yggdrasil, Mímir’s Well and the Norns (opens in a new tab)
These notes support the named claims, not every detail or quotation in the story.