Sacred tree at Uppsala

In the 1070s, the writer of a scholium in Adam of Bremen's Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum explained: Near that temple is a very large tree with widespread branches which are always green both in winter and summer.

There is also a spring there where the pagan are accustomed to perform sacrifices and to immerse a human being alive.

[3]The description of the tree and the location of a well nearby are reminiscent of the evergreen Yggdrasil, which stood above the Well of Urd, and it is possible that the Swedes consciously had created a copy of the world of their Norse gods at Uppsala.

[4] The later Icelandic source Hervarar saga contains a description of how the tree was used in the pagan rites, concerning an event taking place only a few years after the scholium was written.

A horse was then brought to the assembly and hewn in pieces and cut up for eating, and the sacred tree was smeared with blood.