"For nine nights I hung from the wind-tossed tree,
wounded by a spear; I was given as an offering to Odin,
sacrificing myself to myself, upon the great tree known to none!
No bread to fill my hunger, no drop of water to quench my thirst.
I looked down and gathered the runes,
gathering and crying out, before falling from the tree."
Jotunheim's winds and frost were the fiercest in the Nine Realms.
Save for the Frost Giants, whose sturdy, massive bodies had been born of a world of ice, Jotunheim's winds and frost—capable of stripping flesh and splitting bone—howled over the continent without pause.
A colossal rift stretched across the frozen land like a scar, visible from high above. Within it, water that hadn't frozen but instead steamed with warmth bubbled up in a steady flow.
The spring formed a lake beside towering, sheer ice cliffs. The roots of an enormous tree, shimmering with bright silver flecks, sank into its waters. Above them, the tree stretched beyond sight into the river of stars, yet seemed too ethereal to be real.
The God of Mischief, Loki, King of the Frost Giants, stood on the bank of the Well of Wisdom, swaying gently as he quietly recited a long Asgardian ballad. It told how Odin had hung himself upon the World Tree and gained the power of the runes through sacrifice.
The jingling sound in the wind came from a chain made of iron links as thick as a thumb. It hung from a protruding branch on one of the World Tree's roots. Suspended beneath it was a burly figure with long golden hair and a flowing beard.
A trail of crimson blood ran down the face hidden beneath Thor Odinson's long hair. He swayed gently in the wind with the