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Chapter 4. The Sky Connection 101
Both places were known to the travellers to the Land of the Dead, the Germanic
wizards or the Saamí noaides, the ones who could ride in the shape of animals. Two
bridges: the one leading up is Bifröst, and the one downward-aiming, the Gjallarbrú.
The Milky Road leading across the sky and down to the bridges was frozen solid
enough in midwinter to carry the souls of the dead back and forth from the Land of
the Ancestors, but from late spring to early fall its shape was (is) imprecise, flowing
around the night sky like swollen rivers in the spring, dangerous for the crossing of
souls but because of this Midgard was left in peace during that time of year. The
way to the Land Beyond certainly involved some dangers as in trying to cross a huge
river on an old swaying bridge.
No one can say with any degree of certainty that early Scandinavians thought
in these images, but scholars are certain that these were exactly the images used by
tribes immediately to the North, East, and West of the homeland of the Germanic
realm up to the middle of the last century, and even as late as 1995 in some of the
more rural areas. It would seem very peculiar indeed if the ancient Scandinavians
had held a completely different set of beliefs.
There seems to be substance to Jan deVries’ argument that Bifröst, the Shimmering
Way, may be seen in the Milky Way. The first part of the name, according
to Simek, seems to mean “swaying” rather than “shimmering” from the ON bifa to
“shake” or “sway”which is exactly what the Milky Way appears to do as it rotates
around the sky every night. In the night sky, then, the Road to Hel or Ásgard in
its N-S orientation could be seen every night, but only at Yule did this orientation
coincide with midnight.
The Teutonic heavens were, of course, supported by the branches of the World
Tree. Nowadays, Lærað is conceptualized as little more than a chart with circles
and lines with nine worlds symmetrically spaced throughout the whole thing. It is
doubtful, however, that the ancients thought of the universe in such terms. In fact,
it not even clear if they really even understood how to create maps, never mind
charts and diagrams! If that were in their repertoire of skills surely there would be
at least one type of pictograph which would represent the universe, but to date none
have been found which would suggest such an arrangement of worlds although there
are glyphs which suggest the Tree itself. 19
With a neat application of Occam’s Razor, one is returned to a simple picture
which the Germanic peoples could easily have seen as the physical arrangement
of the universe: a green Earth covered partially by wide expanses of ocean, a sky
19 Some writers such as Edred Thorsson and Nigel Pennick show a particular glyph which
looks similar to two ”Y’s,” one right-side up and the other upside down, superimposed upon one
another so that there is three branches going up and three going down. The upper branches are
the branches of Lærað, and the lower ones are the roots. This is still very simple and primitivistic
compared to the diagrams of some of these modern authors.