Talk:World tree

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). :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

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Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 14:09, 14 March 2023 (UTC)