Talk:World tree

Untitled
- A link to a furry role playing game is wholly unneccesary here >:(.

Could the Sephiroth (tree of life) fit in here anywhere? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.190.238.232 (talk • contribs) 03:35, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Added the lines about Samoyeds, but I don't know enough about the subject to properly write out rest of the (missing) information. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.35.169.75 (talk • contribs) 20:25, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Just a thought... could the story of Atlas holding the Earth on his shoulders have been the ancient Greek version of the "world tree" story? Replacing the tree with a god?- — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.12.116.200 (talk • contribs) 00:43, 4 March 2006 (UTC)


 * The link to the game was there before I started on the game's article. Perhaps we should make "World Tree" lead to a disambiguation page? Which is what I feel this page mostly acts as already.  I have to disagree that linking to the World Tree RPG is "unneccesary".  Just because some people may not like the idea of furries doesn't mean that all meanings of "World Tree" shouldn't be represented.  --Bear Eagleson 12:04, 8 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I've made a World Tree (disambiguation) page. Should we edit this page to make it redirect there? Bear Eagleson 00:49, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Dyson Tree
A [Dyson Tree] is a sort of world tree. Perhaps it should be included in the popular culture section? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.130.141.222 (talk) 12:56, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Disambiguation Format Idea
World Tree may refer to: --Bear Eagleson 12:05, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
 * The World Tree, a form of axis mundi, present in many mythologies.
 * A feature in the Warcraft series of computer games.
 * The setting of the PBS show It's A Big Big World
 * World Tree, a role-playing game


 * Hmm, to revise the first bullet point: how about "A World Tree - such as Yggdrassil - a form of axis mundi, found in many mythologies." Bear Eagleson 12:55, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

- I'm not aware of a World Tree in Buddhism, despite the importance of trees in symbolism. That said, I would not want to see a "World Tree" article combined with "Axis Mundi," as the Axis Mundi is one version of a "World Tree" myth archetype. That would be like combining combining the article on the "Trickster" archetype with the article on "Loki." Several cultures have a World Tree-like myth, including the Mayans, which is enough reason to see one article about World Trees in general, and seporate articles about individual myths like the Mayan tree. Kevingarcia 22:29, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Move and Name Change Proposal
Should we rename this page "World Tree (mythology)" and have "World Tree" redirect to the "World Tree (disambiguation)" page? --Bear Eagleson

No, don’t merge them. Stop trying to merge the Jewish and Christian religions with others; as well as the belief of The Tree Of Life into things it is not. Those trying to merge religious traditions and beliefs of many different religions is not respecting any of them. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.181.35.232 (talk) 02:30, 3 June 2018 (UTC)

Agreed. Parts of the concepts may overlap but they are clearly not synonymous. They should probably make reference to each other's entry but should not be merged into one entry. The disambiguation re: Tree of Life has already been at the cost of loss of meaningful content. For instance, the former entry for the historical but now defunct Church of the Tree of Life [see http://califias.blogspot.com/2014/11/the-church-of-tree-of-life.html] now points to Tree of Life due to disambiguation but it is nowhere mentioned there. Similarly, many of the topics in Tree of Life have no place in World Tree Keepertrout (talk)

Pop culture references
I have pulled the following section, which would be more appropriate in a separate article or at a disambig page:

In popular culture

 * The Playstation role-playing game Breath of Fire III features a tree of life named Yggdrasil.
 * The NES role-playing game Faxanadu is set on a world tree
 * Above & Below is an album by a band called World Tree. World Tree music comes from the south coast of England and is inspired by the concepts of the World Tree.  The motif was chosen as it reflects a meaning shared across the myriad cultures from the four corners of the earth. "World Tree" music is original and composed by John & Gretchen Cornwall, fusing instruments and styles from around the globe.  It has been described as "beautiful and so enchanting" and "certain sounds as reminiscent of long lost ages" (find http://www.myspace.com/worldtreemusic for more commentaries).  "World Tree" music is an antidote to the striving industrial-military culture that currently dominates the globe.  The band feel that music is a trans-global language and its healing properties can provide the basis for an organic world culture where humans live in harmony with the natural world they inhabit.  Wikipedia is an example of an organic communication system based on modern technology.  World Tree music is an organic fusion of ancient (e.g. wood and skin) acoustic instruments with modern technology and instrumentation (e.g. synthesised FX and electronic instruments) with beautiful vocals.  More information can be found at http://www.worldtreemusic.com.

(End of pulled section) - WeniWidiWiki 21:04, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

The world tree also appeared in various fictional works under different names. This has been an on going fact since the world tree concept existed. The most recent examples are found in the Warcraft universe. There are three known World Trees, all connected to the night elves. Nordrassil, the original World Tree on the summit of Mount Hyjal, was planted after the War of the Ancients to bless the night elves with immortality and grant their druids the ability to walk the realm known as the Emerald Dream. Teldrassil, the night elf players' starting area, was intended as a replacement for Nordrassil after the events of Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos in a failed, vain effort to restore their immortality. There was another tree known as Vordrassil, revealed in World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King. Vordrassil, located in the Grizzly Hills of southern Northrend, was destroyed by the ancient druids for reasons unknown; its trunk is now the furbolg city of Grizzlemaw.

Based on their names, all three appear to be influenced by the Norse World Tree mythos.

(added new section).-- Lenticel ( talk ) 13:33, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

re: 70.190.238.232 (talk) at 03:35, 18 January 2006
good point. started to add section, sourced with arizal, gra, and alter rebbe. problem is, my only info on GRA is from rabbi yoel david bakst, and on hassidism from chabad.org; actually not a bad list of sources! בינה תפארת (talk) 10:00, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Tree of Life in Christianity
Tree of Life describes the idea that all creatures, all being are connected in one system. The idea of tree is as ancient as idea of net (used in modern theories of networks, internet, net marketing, social networks etc.) or may be more ancient (if people of the woods is more ancient than fishermen). The most simple idea of connection depicts such symbol as cross +. This symbol is one of the most ancient symbols of Tree of Life, Tree of Wisdom, Tree of Salvation. So first christians made this symbol their own (each religious teaching must have it's own symbol) and used it and idea of Tree of Life so often, that now almost everybody connects this symbol with Christianity, but not always with idea of Tree of Life, idea of Life, Wisdom and Salvation.

Bayzi (talk) 10:49, 28 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your edits; however I feel that they are better suited to the Tree of Life article, as they are separate concepts, albeit sharing some similarities especially with respect to Christianity. I've removed the references to Tree of Life in this article and placed it in the "See Also" section. C xong (talk) 06:02, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Jewish mythology and the World Tree
I tagged Jewish mythology with synthesis. The Tree of life (biblical) and Tree of the knowledge of good and evil are concepts appearing in the Garden of Eden and the Tree of life (Kabbalah) refers to the God in Abrahamic religions' method of interaction with the universe. Neither of these are frameworks which the Earth, Heavens, and other realms exist within/atop. — Sowlos (talk) 12:20, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

Incorrect interpretation 'World tree'
The correct meaning would be 'Universal tree'. — Ineuw talk 12:35, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

Merge suggestion
World tree and Tree of life are essentially forks of each other and essentially speak of the same mythological motif. Especially when original research will be striped from both. Staszek Lem (talk) 18:49, 17 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Note that we also have axis mundi. These are more or less forks of one another, but they're also all poorly sourced articles that all need rewrites from solid sources. In connection, sacred grove needs serious work and sacred tree just redirects to trees in mythology (no doubt a symptom of Wikipedia's generally poor and confused coverage of folklore-related material). In fact, the only developed and well-sourced articles we seem to have on related topics at the moment in the Germanic sphere (Sacred trees and groves in Germanic paganism and mythology and connected articles). &#58;bloodofox: (talk) 18:53, 17 April 2018 (UTC)


 * Oppose — I do not see any African perspective or representation in World tree. Most African traditions refer to it as "Tree of life", not World tree. Indeed, many cultures are familiar with the concept of tree of life. In Google search, we have only 1.8 million hits for world tree and 66.6 million hits for tree of life. This is the first time I've ever heard of the term "world tree".Tamsier (talk) 11:02, 16 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Weak oppose on the grounds that the page titles discuss distinctly notable Trees in mythology. The key problem I see is that World tree has several unreferenced sections that don't discuss World Trees at all (so, there is internal inconsistency). Deleting those section, which are already appropriately covered on the other tree pages, should fix the most egregious problems. Klbrain (talk) 07:17, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

"Evolutionary origins" section
This section was deleted with reasons in Nov 2019, then undeleted with no reasoning in Jan 2020. Upon further examination, this section contains some relatively extraordinary claims, and relies on two sources with incomplete cites (no page numbers given). I tried to verify the first source using Google Books' search function with the phrase "world tree", and of the four hits, none had any text near the searched text that implies relevance to the claims of this section. At least this source is an actual scholarly source. The second source does not appear to have searchable text. WorldCat shows five copies in libraries (four in the UK, one in Ireland), so it will be difficult to obtain for manual verification. Further, I can find no evidence that Daniel Haycock is an authoritative source for this topic, and as far as I can tell, "Manupod Press" always involves Haycock, raising the possibility of a disguised self-published source.

I have added relevant tags for these things to the article. I believe that, barring more reliable sources or further information that shores up the reliability of the Haycock source, this section should be permanently deleted. Esoteric bearcat (talk) 07:01, 26 March 2020 (UTC)

Non-world tree myths
Recently many myths have been added that do not contain the world tree motif. Most stories do contain trees but not every tree is a world tree. These myths would be better suited for Trees in mythology. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kardoen (talk • contribs) 09:54, 24 April 2021 (UTC)


 * Since the last time I made a remark, more myths and motifs that do not include world trees have been added. Especially 189.122.57.144 has improved the page a lot but in te process neglected to differentiate between world tree myths and any trees in a cultural context.
 * I feel like a lot of work has gone into writing the page, it would be a shame if it all went to waste. I think pieces of the article belong on Wikipedia, just not this article. I'll soon be deleting the non-world tree myths from the article. Kardoen (talk) 07:36, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion: Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 14:09, 14 March 2023 (UTC)
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