Yggr’s Gallows

I am the AllFather. One of the creators of the World, the wise One, Odin the One-Eyed, the Lord of all Gods and the highest in all of creation. From my Throne I see all. I sacrificed an eye to the Well of Mimir for the power to see it all. My ravens fly across the nine worlds, and they spy on the living, serving Huginn and Muninn, the lords of all ravens, my Thought and Memory. I’ve seen the beginning of the world, I defeated Ymir and from his body I created the sacred World Tree. I lifted the lands from the Ocean and I settled the nine realms. I kept the Joiner at bay and I have secured the safety of all living things. My sons have become deities on their own right. I ended the war with the Vanir and secured the control of the magic power of nature, Seidr. I secured in my blood oath with the wild being Loki, the power of fire to send their messages and offerings to the Gods.

I did great things, but I also did terrible things in my quest for knowledge: I stole and drank the Mead of Poetry to give my followers the power of music to tell stories. I seduced Loki because I knew his power and uses. Thanks to him I secured the most powerful weapons in the world, my spear Gungnir and the mighty Hammer Mjölnir in the hands of my son. In order to gain these I painted Loki as the villain so he can procure these gifts for me. His trust in me has never wavered, and I have betrayed it time and time again. I have seduced many men and women, taking the shape of their loved ones to find information and steal private conversations. I have travelled the world and gotten mortals into squabbles just to secure their continuous praying to me. I have done all of the terrible things, and I am still the most powerful, because I dictate and write the laws. I am created order and harnessed chaos. I am the Terrible One. I have not been honorable. I have cheated, stolen, lied, manipulated, and entrapped my enemies and allies, and therefore I have been named Yggr. And I embrace this name for I am not ashamed in my quest for knowledge, my quest to keep the nine realms alive and running for as long as I can, for knowledge is the only power that matters and the quest for knowledge is the only honorable one.

Even with all of my achievements, I have yet to find the ultimate power, the ancient power of the Norns, the ones who carve on the Sacred World Tree, the power of meaning, the power of the sacred carvings, the runes. This is the most important of all because it can answer the questions, it can ensure the knowledge is preserved forever, it can channel the gods, and it can give us a way to share the knowledge. I need to control that power. I need it. I can’t ensure the victory without it. Oral traditions can be extinguished, but written meaning lasts forever. To be able to read the fates of all beings carved in the World Tree. To be able to write new fates in the Tree by writing the runes, and by using the runes as a written language to ensure the knowledge lasts forever, is a power too big to not control myself. Only Loki has seen this power in action, in his youth when he stumbled with the World Tree.

The Norns have told me they will never give me this power as long as I live as I currently am. “What about Loki?” I asked them, and they answered that Loki was reborn in the tree. I said, “What did that mean?” And they said, “Logi, the Wildfire, died in the World Tree, became one with it, and from the ashes, Loki was born.”