'It was silver-grey,' writes Neil Gaiman in his myth-infused 2001 novel American Gods. The implicit warning is especially pertinent now, given that Yggdrasill is not just any tree but an ash tree. 'It represents a natural world that is giving but cannot be taken for granted: a symbiotic system that may – or may not – withstand all the depredations that humanity inflicts upon it.' 'Yggdrasill is a model for our environment that we would do well to think about,' says Larrington. When the end of the world comes, the tree groans and totters but we are not told whether it will fall. The animals that live on it both thrive and damage it. Its branches reach up into the heavens its roots go down into the world of the dead and frost giants. A version of the tree of life, Yggdrasill stands at the centre of the Old Norse universe. Where biblical texts and other legends attributed floods, plagues and pestilence to the wrath of God or the gods, the story of Yggdrasill resonates more in a world that is alert to the impact of man. From an elegiac exploration of the environment, musings on masculinity and a reckoning with existence, these ancient Nordic myths underpin many of the ways we think today So they have a note of pessimism which resonates in a more secular world.'ĭespite this, they are not without hope or enlightenment. Its inhabitants are marching towards the end of time. 'And unlike Greek and Roman myths, they portray a world which is finite. 'The Norse myths are important because they take place in a landscape which for people in Britain and the English-speaking world, we recognise as being like our own,' Professor Larrington tells BBC Culture. The joy of reading is to commune with other people through the stories they have left behind – but to recognise in their worlds something of our own.Ī new book, The Norse Myths that Shape the Way We Think by Carolyne Larrington, a professor at Oxford University, explores the contemporary resonances of Norse myths, and examines their reimagining in popular culture. Reading stories from centuries' past, it's reassuring to discover that while times change, human instincts and emotions are more constant and universal. The stories we tell reflect who we are, as both individuals and societies, at any given time. In this discipline, the premise that there are seven basic plots (as outlined in a book of the same name by Christopher Booker) holds sway. I am a novelist, and teach creative writing.

We give them a turn and they make new and curious combinations.' This is particularly true of storytelling.

We simply take a lot of old ideas and put them into a sort of mental kaleidoscope.

The US writer Mark Twain famously wrote: 'There is no such thing as a new idea.

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