Of the Great Tree

He took up his thought and from that high place he hurled it as a bolt of thunder through the sky; he spoke to it, casting the language upon it so that it took shape. It landed with great force into the folds of the snow capped mountains. It cut the land and flattened it so that a wide valley became its home. The force of the thought broke the waters of a glacier so that a mighty torrent of water fell to the valley and broadened out into a river, clear and cold. There the thought of Erde took shape and form. It germinated, unfolding from the seed of his thought. He blew wisdom into it and its mind unfolded as the shell of it fell away and it sprouted; a great finger crawled forth into the dirt and a stem broke the surface of the world. And it grew and grew. Rising from the valley floor, climbing ever higher. Its roots spreading beneath the earth, cutting the roots of the mountain, even through the world and into the Wall of Worlds and beyond. Its roots tapped the Maelstrom to drink of the Firmament. And her limbs grew likewise into the heavens, spreading ever further, as if to hold up the dome of the sky. Strong and unyielding the tree grew, thick, covered in a bark-like armor. It was an Ash and it was the Father of All Trees.

As it broke the earth it called to Mordius, for all things that grew in the earth were known to her. She came to the tree and marveled at it and she loved it and took the greater store of her wisdom and poured it as water upon the roots of the tree, so that the water pooled all about it, spreading through the valley in lakes, so that later men called them the Pools of Green, and fogs gathered over them. The tree drank of her and embodied all that she saw, knew and understood of the world. 

Fed thus the tree sprouted green across its broad limbs and boughs and the leaves soaked in the world's youthful sun in all its glory, drinking of the power of Erde as it lay in all things. 

And Erde was pleased for he had not seen the leaves and these were Mordius' creation. And she gave the greater part of herself to the tree and for that it is called the Mother of All Trees, as well as Father, so that men in later ages worshiped it as the Mother and Father, that is the Eahrtaut, the Great Tree or what the All Fathers call the Vestotomrud, the Cup of Wisdom. And in it and all its offspring that came after there was ever a part of her.

The valley blossomed about Eahrtaut, and the river flowed through it. The tree stood then in the Pools of Green and these pools lay upon the feet of the tree and it is told that when the pools should run dry then indeed the days of the Gonfod are upon the world and the final Rin, that is age of the world, begins.

~The Codex of Aihrde