World tree
[2] More specifically, it shows up in "Haitian, Finnish, Lithuanian, Hungarian, Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Norse, Siberian and northern Asian Shamanic folklore".
A parallel story is attested in the traditions of the indigenous peoples of the Americas, where the thunderbird is slotted into the role of the giant bird whose nest is menaced by a "snake-like water monster".
[17][18] Romanian historian of religion, Mircea Eliade, in his monumental work Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy, suggested that the world tree was an important element in shamanistic worldview.
[24] Mircea Eliade proposed that the typical imagery of the world tree (bird at the top, snake at the root) "is presumably of Oriental origin".
[30] In a different cosmogonic account presented by Pherecydes of Syros, male deity Zas (identified as Zeus) marries female divinity Chthonie (associated with the earth and later called Gê/Gaia), and from their marriage sprouts an oak tree.
[33] In a version of the story provided by Pseudo-Apollodorus in Bibliotheca, the Golden Fleece was affixed by King Aeetes to an oak tree in a grove dedicated to war god Ares.
[35] In the same passage of Valerius Flaccus' work, King Aeetes prays to Ares for a sign and suddenly a "serpent gliding from the Caucasus mountains" appears and coils around the grove as to protect it.
Creatures live within Yggdrasil, including the harts Dáinn, Dvalinn, Duneyrr and Duraþrór, the giant in eagle-shape Hræsvelgr, the squirrel Ratatoskr and the wyrm Níðhöggr.
The recurrent imagery is also present in Lithuanian myth: on the treetops, the luminaries and eagles, and further down, amidst its roots, the dwelling place of snakes and reptiles.
[44] According to Slavic folklore, as reconstructed by Radoslav Katičić, the draconic or serpentine character furrows near a body of water, and the bird that lives on the treetop could be an eagle, a falcon or a nightingale.
[45] Scholars Ivanov and Toporov offered a reconstructed Slavic variant of the Indo-European myth about a battle between a Thunder God and a snake-like adversary.
[53] According to the Gnostic codex On the Origin of the World, the tree of immortal life is in the north of paradise, which is outside the circuit of the Sun and Moon in the luxuriant Earth.
[57] According to scholarship, Georgian mythology also attests a rivalry between mythical bird Paskunji, which lives in the underworld on the top of a tree, and a snake that menaces its nestlings.
[63] Professor Amar Annus states that, although the motif seems to originate much earlier, its first attestation in world culture occurred in Sumerian literature, with the tale of "Gilgamesh, Enkidu, and the Netherworld".
[2] According to this tale, goddess Innana transplants the huluppu tree to her garden in the City of Uruk, for she intends to use its wood to carve a throne.
[70] Indologist David Dean Shulman provided the description of a similar imagery that appears in South Indian temples: the sthalavṛkṣa tree.
According to Mihály Hoppál, Hungarian scholar Vilmos Diószegi located some motifs related to the world tree in Siberian shamanism and other North Asian peoples.
[4] Scholar Aado Lintrop also noted the resemblance between an account of the World Tree from the Yakuts and a Moksha-Mordvinic folk song (described as a great birch).
[76] The Bai-Terek (also known as bayterek, beyterek, beğterek, begterek, begtereg),[77] found, for instance, in the Altai Maadai Kara epos, can be translated as "Golden Poplar".
[78] Like the mythological description, each part of tree (top, trunk and root) corresponds to the three layers of reality: heavenly, earthly and underground.
[80] A spirit or goddess of the earth, named Aan Alahchin Hotun, is also said to inhabit or live in the trunk of Aal Luuk Mas.
[83] Scholarship points to the existence of a bird named Samurik (Samruk) that, according to Kazakh myth, lives atop the World Tree Baiterek.
[84] In the same vein, Kazakh literary critic and folklorist Seyt Kaskabasov [ru] described that the Samruk bird travels between the three spheres of the universe, nests atop the "cosmic tree" (bәyterek) and helps the hero out of the underworld.
[85] An early 20th-century report on Altaian shamanism by researcher Karunovskaia describes a shamanistic journey, information provided by one Kondratii Tanashev (or Merej Tanas).
Upon this mountain there is "a navel of the earth and water ... which also serves as the root of the 'wonderful tree with golden branches and wide leaves' (Altyn byrly bai terek)".
[86] Finnish folklorist Uno Holmberg reported a tale from the Kalmuck people about a dragon that lies in the sea, at the foot of a Zambu tree.
[87] He also reported a "Central Asian" narrative about the fight between the snake Abyrga and a bird named Garide – which he identified as a version of Indian Garuda.
If a mùgumo tree falls, it is believed to be an end of an era for a "god"/dynasty and a ritual should be done by elders to cleanse the area and the community because it might be a bad omen.
[citation needed] The imagery of the World Tree appears in a specific tale type of the Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index, type ATU 301, "The Three Stolen Princesses", and former subtypes AaTh 301A, "Quest for a Vanished Princess" (or "Three Underground Kingdoms") and AaTh 301B, "The Strong Man and His Companions" (Jean de l'Ours and Fehérlófia).
[100] Likewise, historical linguist Václav Blažek argued for parallels of certain motifs of these fairy tales (the night watch of the heroes, the golden apples, the avian thief) to Ossetian Nart sagas and the Greek myth of the Garden of the Hesperides.
