i am getting more and more convinced that icleandic manuscript illustrators, were struggling heavily with understanding many of the nature descriptions in norse sagas, because icelandic nature is so different from scandinanvian.
here forexemple we see a “tree”in a icelandic manuscript illustration from 1680. soppused to be yggradsil, the world tree. it looks like a flower.... on the other hand! very cute flower!
i appluad the effort here, even if i am starting to doubt this illustrater had ever seen a tree.
we can also see very cute, but vaguelly confusing, illustration of several mythical animals that live in yggradsil. on the bottom we got a very cute nidhögger, which is serpent - ish, so i am satified.
i must critique Ratatorsk, the squirell though. the illustrator really let their mind free there, and was like: squirell = unicorn/cat mix. i am confused with the result.
then we got some of the grass - eating animals which eats of the leaves of yggradsil, they look ok, although, they appear to have mystical hovering in the air powers, never mentioned in the manuscripts.
at the top we those two important birds. 1 sees all, 1 hears (via gossiping ratatorsk) all and whispers it to the allseeing birds. they are fine, although they look a bit too much like.... ducks. do not look a bird that belong on the top of a tree.
all in 6/10 points for this illustration.