Meditations on HAGAL: Yggdrasil, the Wind-Tossed Tree

This essay was completed on 23 November 2021. Life's experiences over the past several weeks helped provide new insight into the HAG-ALL rune and in turn to that tree of which none telleth from what roots it doth rise.

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As I begin my meditations on the rune HAGAL, I return to the Hávamál. In verse 152 Odin reveals how he uses this rune magically to save people from a hall in flames:

“A seventh I know:
Should the hall blaze high in flames
above all the people;
no matter how it burns, I save them all:
This magic I know to perform.”[1]

Immediately the exoteric association of HAGAL with hail, which is emphasized in each of the standard rune poems, comes to mind. It is simple to envision hail colliding with the blazing hall resulting in the flames being extinguished. Each of the standard rune poems also use “corn” as a metaphor for HAGAL. Representative of these is the Old English Rune Poem (OERP):

“Hail is whitest of corn, from heaven’s height
it whirls, winds blow it, it
becomes water after.”[2]

The reference to “corn” in the rune poems does not suggest “maize” as it does today, but rather any crop that grew from seed.

The Norwegian Rune Poem (NRP) uses similar imagery:

“Hail is the coldest of corns;
Christ (Kristr) shaped the original heavens.”[3]

According to Edred Thorsson, some versions of this text refer to Hroptr (the Hidden One) rather than Kristr (Christ).[4]  Hroptr is one of the many names of Odin. The OERP’s reference to “heaven’s height” is echoed by the NRP’s “Hroptr (or Odin) shaped the original heavens.” These phrases bring to mind that Odin and his brothers made the sky from primal frost-giant Ymir’s skull. The OERP also refers to “water” that the hail is transformed into, and we recall that the seas were made from Ymir’s blood.

The NRP verse reveals that, with Odin as our role model, we may shape the heavens or universe inside us. This point helps us to understand Guido Von List’s motto for HAGAL, “Harbor the All in yourself, and you will control the All!”[5] HAGAL is the ALL-rune as its form contains the forms of all of the runes. In that too, it is a seed –it is central, and it is all. HAGAL may also on a microcosmic level represent sperm from which human life develops –“the whitest of corn.” It is a seed from which life itself grows.

It is evident then that from the perspective of Northern spirituality, HAGAL represents Yggdrasil, the world tree, both in macrocosm and microcosm. Karl Hans Welz wrote of HAGAL, “Rune of the tree of life, Rune of the world-ash, Yggdrasil, represent[s] the threefold being.”[6] It was this concept that led Siegfried Kummer to record:

“The HAGAL-rune is the world rune, the world cross, the world tree around whose center, vicinity, navel, rotates the whole spiritual and physical world, microcosm and macrocosm.”[7]

To better comprehend Kummer’s insight, we turn to the Voluspá. Here, the Volva’s account tells of a time prior to Earth, prior to Odin shaping the universe.

“I remember yet the giants of yore,
Who gave me bread in the days gone by;
Nine worlds I knew, the nine in the tree
With mighty roots beneath the mold.”[8]

In this ancient vision, Yggdrasil is but a seed beneath the mold –beneath the earth. The shape of HAGAL combines the runes MAN and YR –in a bind-rune that reminds us again of Yggdrasil with its branches reaching up into the spiritual realm and its roots sinking down into the material plane. The shape of the HAGAL runestave has six spokes; three of which, like branches stretch upward, and three that, like Yggdrasil’s roots sink downwards. Here I am reminded that the verse of the Vafþrúðnismál ("Lay of Vafthrúthnir") that refers to a seventh question and response between Odin the giant Vafthrúthnir speaks obscurely of a “six-headed son.”

“Othin said: As a seventh say, if sage thou art
and thou, Vafthrúthnir, dost wot:
how children gat the grim etin,
as misshapen she-thurs none was?”

“Vafthúthnir said: ‘Neath the ice-etin’s arms, say they,
there grew both girl and boy;
one with the other, the wise etin’s shanks
begat a six-headed son.”[9]

It is this author’s contention that the Lay of Vafthrúthnir’s eighteen numbered questions and responses telling of a battle of wits between Odin and the jötunn (giant) Vafthrúthnir represent another hidden rune poem that correlates to the eighteen relevant verses of the Rúnatáls-þáttr-Óðins “Odins Rune Song” from the Hávamál.[10] Therefore, this seventh exchange refers to HAGAL just as Odin’s seventh “spell” from the Hávamál does. This verse suggests that HAGAL and all the runes (as HAGAL is the Mother-rune) were formed (“begat”) from Ymir, the original hrímthursam or “ice-etin.” It is significant that Odin and his brothers Ville, and Vé transported Ymir’s corpse to the middle of Ginnungagap.[11] It is from this gap that Yggdrasil grows. Snorri tells us that the second of Yggdrasil’s three roots originates from whence Ginnungagap was:

“Three of the tree’s roots support it and extend very, very far. One is among the Aesir, the second among the frost-giants, where Ginnungagap once was. The third extends over Niflheim…”[12]

Importantly Snorri goes onto explain of the second root:

“But under the root that reaches towards the frost-giants, there is where Mimir’s well is, which has wisdom and intelligence contained in it, and the master of the well is called Mimir.”[13]

HAGAL is the first of the second aett[14] of six runes. Following Von List’s concept of arising-being-passing away to new arising, I suggest that the second aett represent being. The final rune of this aett is TYR. We shall see that TYR too refers to Yggdrasil, not as the tree of life, but rather as the tree upon which Odin sacrifices himself.[15] Therefore this aett are book-ended by the symbolism of the windy tree Yggdrasil. With HAGAL, the winds blow the “seed” that grows into Yggdrasil; with TYR, they blow Odin during his sacrifice to himself, “I ween that I hung on the windy tree, hung there for nights full nine.”[16]

It is significant that HAGAL as the seventh rune follows KA. KA represents Askr and Embla the first humans who were given the breath of life and the wonder of senses by Odin and his brothers while they existed as trees. Just as Yggdrasil is described as an Ash tree,[17] the name Askr means, “ash-tree” in Old Norse. In HAGAL we extend the concept of the tree allusion beyond life’s beginning (from a seed or sapling) to life’s entirety (being) from beginning to end.

The seed and roots are indicative of ørlǫg (primal law or fate). This suggests that certain aspects of our life will come to pass and are outside of our control. The root, which extends to Niflheim represents our physical decay and ultimately our death. Snorri describes Niflheim in terms that we generally associate with Hel (the place). He writes in Gylfaginning:

“Hel (the goddess) he threw into Niflheim and gave her authority over nine worlds, such that she has to administer board and lodging to those sent to her, and that is those who die of sickness or old age.”[18] 

Even more chilling is the description from Grímnismál (“The Lay of Grimnir”) where we read of snakes and the dragon Níðhǫggr (Nithhogg)[19] gnawing at Yggdrasil’s root.

“More serpents there are beneath the ash
Than an unwise ape would think;
Goin and Moin, Grafvitnir’s sons,
Grabak and Grafvolluth,
Ofnir and Svafnir shall ever, methinks,
Gnaw at the twigs of the tree.”

Yggdrasil’s ash great evil suffers,
Far more than men do know;
The hart bits its top, its trunk is rotting,
And Nithhogg gnaws beneath.”[20]

It is from this imagery of snakes bringing sickness to the world tree that the Icelandic Rune Poem (IRP) gains its otherwise obscure reference:

“HAGALL (Hail) is cold corn
and driving sleet
and snake’s sickness.”[21]

The second root extends to Jötunheim and Mimir’s well. It is from this root that we gain all wisdom and intelligence –the cosmic mysteries and secrets of the runes. The final root reaches to the heavens and the Aesir, but it is under that root that we find Urd’s well (Wyrd’s well). This is the well of “fate” –the well of Wyrd. It is from this root that our “fate” is cast.[22] This theme will be further explored in my meditation on NOD, the eighth rune.

In its numeric position as the seventh rune, there is also a relationship back to the first rune, FA, and forward to the thirteenth rune, BAR. In FA we saw raw potential represented by both fire and the Ginnungagap. With HAGAL we likewise see potential, but the potential is now represented by hail –a seeming contradiction to FA’s fire. As we move from the “arising” aett to the “being” aett, we discover a thesis and antithesis that are only resolved dialectically in the final aett as the key ideas are synthesized in the concept of “passing away to new arising.” Esoterically HAGAL is the life that we live and shape. Together, FA’s primal fire and HAGAL’s hail provide the elements (fire and water) that have long been associated with life.[23] We see then that life is formed through this great collision of fire and ice resulting in the first proto-being Ymir. HAGAL represents both the hail of Niflheim and the result of the collision of Niflheim’s ice storm and Muspelheim’s blazing fires. Thorsson explains,

“The H-rune contains the complete model of absolute potential energy, as it holds the full dynamism of fire and ice in its form. From this harmonious balance of all-potential, an internal evolution can take place within its space.”[24]

In BAR, the synthesis is completed as life or “being” overcomes death and is reborn. We may consider that BAR too is filled with potential, but it is a potential that has attained a higher plane –the spiritual plane.

HAGAL marks the beginning of the journey to join the material with the spiritual worlds. It is a seed or crystal that makes us “All.” We recognize that we are our universe and that illusions no longer matter. It provides focus and minimizes the importance of those things that are not central to our lives. HAGAL is the starting point for being and authenticity. It provides internal harmony and protection. Still it is wise to recall that Odin sacrificed himself on this wind-tossed tree. It is also wise to recall that the ancient ash will, during the days of Ragnarök, tremble and ultimately fall.

Notes:

1. Karl Hans Welz, Letter of Instructions # 7: The Rune HAGAL. https://runemagick.com/rune_magic07.html 

2. Stephen Pollington, Rudiments of Runelore (Cambridgeshire, UK: Anglo-Saxon Books, 2011), 47. 

3. Pollington, 53. 

4. See note in Edred Thorsson, Runelore: The Magic, History, and Hidden Codes of the Runes (San Francisco: Weiser Books, 2012), 100. 

5. Guido von List, The Secret of the Runes, trans. Stephen Flowers (Rochester, VT: Destiny Books, 1988), 54. 

6. Welz. 

7. Siegfried Adolf Kummer, Holy Rune Might, trans. Aelfric Avery (Vavenby, CA: Woodharrow Bund Press, 2019), 89. 

8. Henry Adams Bellows, trans., The Poetic Edda: The Mythological Poems (Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2004), 3. 

9. Lee M. Hollander, trans., The Poetic Edda (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2012), 48. 

10. The magnitude of this thesis is too great to be contained in the current essay. It shall be taken up in a separate article. 

11. See my article, “Meditations on RIT: Constructing Midgard.” https://talesfromtheironwood.blogspot.com/2021/10/meditations-on-rit-constructing-midgard.html 

12. Snorri Sturluson, Edda, trans., Anthony Faulkes (North Clarendon, VT: Everyman, 1995), 17. 

13. Sturluson, 17. 

14. Aett is a division or grouping of the runes. In the Elder Futhark there are three such groupings of eight runes. In the Armanen Futhorkh, each grouping is comprised of six runes. 

15. See my article, “Meditations on TYR: Hangatyr's Sacrifice.” https://talesfromtheironwood.blogspot.com/2021/01/meditating-on-tyr-in-light-of-runatals.html 

16. Bellows, 60. 

17. See Snorri Sturluson, Gylfaginning 14. “Then spoke Gangleri: ‘Where is the chief centre or holy place of the gods?’ High replied: ‘It is at the ash Yggdrasil. There the gods must hold their courts each day.” 17. 

18.Sturluson, 27. 

19. Níðhǫggr in ON is “the one striking full of hatred.” Vǫluspá (“The Prophecy of the Volva”) describes Níðhǫggr as a dragon of death that drinks the blood of the dead and eats corpses. 

20. Bellows 98-99. 

21. Pollington, 55. 

22. It is important to understand that wyrd does not indicate “predestination.” It is rather an indication of what “should” be and not “will" be. The concept suggests a layering of actions and events in which one action leads to another. 

23. Henry Cornelius Agrippa summarizes occult or magical thinking known up to his time in his Sixteenth Century volume, Three Books of Occult Philosophy (Woodbury, MN: Llewellyn Publications, 2021). While recording Hermetic and Neo-Platonic rather than Northern magical concepts, his thoughts on these elements are worth noting. Regarding fire he writes, “The properties of the Fire that is above, are heat, making all things fruitful, and light, giving life to all things.” Regarding water, he writes, “There is so great a necessity of water, that without it no living thing can live.” See especially pages 13 and 16. 

24. Thorsson, 121.