(A crossover between different myths--Greek, Norse, and the popular World Turtle from India.)
There was a huge turtle swimming through space. It carried a round circle of world on its back. There were no elephants, just a turtle, because this world turtle didn’t want to have to have sixteen heavy hooves pressing on its back all the time, instead simply deciding to bear a single flat weight. Now, this world on its back was rather small, but it was still big enough to contain a variety of landscapes and domains. It was simple in its geography. In the middle of the disc, taking up most of the surface, was a large continent. A single large continent. It contained lands like: Beijing-dom, which had coastline along a sea which was partially bounded on the other side by a chain of islands called the Isles of Nippon; Mongulsteppe, which was farther inland than Beijing-dom, and colder and drier; a peninsula called Siberia that was even colder than Mongulsteppe; a much warmer peninsula called Delhia; a very high mountainous plateau near the inland part of Delhia, called Ladachal, or the Sky High Realm of Enlightenment by those who couldn’t pronounce Ladachal; a large bit of land whose coast stretched between the coastline of Delhia and the coastline of Beijing-dom, and which was mostly swampy rainforest, where few people ever went; a group of large, long islands off the coast of the swampy rainforest place, one island of which was more inhabited than the others, and it was called Sing-A-Porrisia; and finally, on the other side of Delhia than the rainforest-filled place, there was a desert land called Far-tzi. This landmass consisting of all these places--Beijing-dom, Mongulsteppe, Siberia, Delhia, Ladachal, and Far-tzi--also contained one big inland sea, which was named the Sea of Caspian, and the whole continent was surrounded by a great wide ocean, which was connected to three main oceans that dipped inland farther than usual: the Delhia and Far-tzi sea, which washed the shores of those two lands; the Other Delhia sea, which was on the other side of Delhia from the first sea; and the Sea of Nippon, between Beijing-dom and Nippon. And a good deal out from the shore, across the open, pure ocean, was...the edge of this world, and the water dropped off into space. But it somehow ended up back where it started, don’t ask how. Also this world, on the back of a turtle, was the home of many gods, and they usually lived on the peninsula of Delhia, and sometimes on the plateau of Ladachal. A few were even to be found in Beijing-dom. These gods called themselves the Hindu, so this world, with its turtle and all, was called Hindu-world.
The turtle beneath Hindu-world swam through space. It had a purpose in mind, if it took a thousand years or more. It would find two other worlds that were just sitting there in space, and which happened to have the exact same sorts of creatures on them as Hindu-world, such as humans and dogs and cats and fish. And then it would join the three separate parts into one. This is how that happened.
The turtle eventually came across something out in space, ahead of it. From here it looked like a blue dot, but it was a whole world inside a huge blue sphere to contain the insides. It was shaped like a dome on top of a circular disc, with another dome underneath to contain the other side of it. The surface of the disc part was called Graeco-Roman world, after its two biggest cities. Then there was a part beneath the surface, called Erebus, which was gloomy and full of ghosts. Then there was the part at the very bottom, which was called Tartarus, or just The Really Horrible Place All The Way Down. It stretched from the underside of the disc part of the world down to the dome underneath, which, although blue from outside, was black on the inside because there was no light, and also it was so evil. Tartarus was full of monsters. It was also a prison for the twisted remains of old gods that the Graeco-Roman world had grown tired of and thrown away. But now back to the surface of Graeco-Roman world. It was another single landmass, although it was commonly thought of as two or even three continents, because of a huge inland sea, connected to the surrounding ocean by a small channel, that essentially cut the whole thing in half, almost, splitting the colder part of this world from the warmer part. This inland sea was called the Mediterranean, but it was also called the Flying Duck Sea because it looked like a flying duck. However, one part of this sea was only connected to the rest by a thin channel, so this smaller part was called the Black Sea. Also, there was another inland gulf, the Red Sea, that stretched, narrow and long, up toward the Flying Duck Sea, almost reaching it but not quite, and this body of water is what split the warmer part of Graeco-Roman world into two parts--a part consisting of mostly desert, and another, larger, part consisting of half desert and half jungle. The Red Sea was also called the Serpent’s Tongue, as it looked just like a snake’s tongue. There was also yet another large inlet that separated parts of this world, and that was the Sort Of Bent Pickle Shaped Sea, and while it didn’t cause enough of a separation as to split the world into four continents, it did finish carving out a three-sided peninsula called the Arabian Peninsula, and the Sort Of Bent Pickle Shaped Sea also had two river lead into it, and those two rivers ran on either side of the unusually fertile land of Mesopotamia, which itself consisted of two very ancient rival empires called Babylonia and Assyria.
But now let’s talk about the various countries, instead of the bodies of water. The three pieces of the Graeco-Roman world’s single supercontinent were called: Europa, the coldest one; Arabia, the desert one that contained Mesopotamia; and Africa, the other one. Here are some notable locations in Europa: Near the beak of the Flying Duck, there is a land called Iberia, but lest it be confused with Siberia, it can also be called Madriddaine. Also, nearby, at the head of the Duck, is a land called Gaul, but lest it be confused with stomach acid, it can be called Parissience. Then there is a big boot-shaped peninsula called Romaly, after its biggest city, Rome itself, as in Graeco-Roman. At the toe of the Romaly boot, there is a triangular island called Syracuzzia, and to one side of the Romally boot is the body of water that forms the wing of the Flying Duck. Across that bit of water lies another peninsula, called Athenzia, home to that other big city, called Grecos, the other half of Graeco-Roman. A bit inland of Athenzia is the small land of Thrace-edonia, which is a province of Grecos and its main country, Athenzia. Farther inland, and a little more towards the direction of Romaly, is the quite ordinary land of Romania, named after Romaly, as Romaly governs Romania from across the continent, as well as governing Parissience and Madriddaine. Right next to Romania is the not-ordinary-at-all land of Transylvania, where, although few humans live there, many other sorts of things call it their home. Along the inland side of Romaly, as if the boot shape were sewn on with stitches, is a mountain range. On the other side is the rather untame, but still Romaly-controlled, land of Germania, which essentially comprises the entirety of the rest of Europa, and stretches right up to the far shore of Europa, and the icy waters that lie there. But there are still a couple more small regions in Europa, which are as you guessed, also Romaly territories.
There is the land of Zurich-land, between Parissience and Romaly itself. There is the land of Viennestria, which is nestled between Romaly, Germania, and the Flying Duck’s wingtip. Then, between Viennestria and Romania, there is the land of Tesla, which essentially acts as a filler country to use up the rest of the land and shore between the boot peninsula and Athenzia. Finally, up near Parissience, there are a couple of tiny states on the shoreline, between Parissience and Germania. They are Amsterdamerland and Brussellium. And across a bit of sea from those states are two islands, out near the edge of the world, one of which is called Londaine, the other Dublindia. These are inhabited by fierce warriors, and they are also very rainy, so even Romaly influence cannot get much traction here. Romaly only controls the part of Londaine that’s closest to the mainland, the rest being entirely under the rule of the natives, and as for Dublindia, Romaly doesn’t even have a single colony there. That is pretty much all there is in Europa.
Now, about Arabia. It contains the Arabian Peninsula, as well as Mesopotamia, and also the land of Phoenicia along the shore of the Flying Duck Sea, about where it’s butt is. And near Phoenicia, there are some other cities that pretty much govern themselves as city-states. These include Bethlehem, Nazareth, and especially Jerusalem, all of which are also under the power of Rome, although lightly, because there are also a few other powerful nations nearby, and Rome wouldn’t want to interfere with them. Also, there is another collection of city-states in the Arabian continent, this one nestled between the Flying Duck and the smaller Black Sea, in a chunk of land known as Arabia Minor, except that usually it isn’t called that because usually people only refer to a specific city state in Arabia Minor by name, and the chunk of land as a whole is ignored. Some Arabia Minor city states include Ephesus, Sarcophe, Mnemosynic, Lydia, Bosphorus, Sphinxopolis, and Mausoleum, as well as other ones whose names sound a lot more Arab. And that is pretty much all of the small Arabian Continent, except for a bit more land that is farther toward the edge of the world than Mesopotamia. This consists of: some desert called Coastal Arabia, because it is near the coast of the ocean, or mainly the coast of the Sort Of Bent Pickle Shaped Sea; some more inland territory called Scenic Babylon, which is infertile desert claimed by Babylon just because; more called Scenic Assyria, which is likewise, but for Assyria instead; a bit of land up by the far shore of the Black Sea, between where Arabia Minor ends and distant Germania begins, that is known as Armenia; and finally another small bit of desert land, this one at the very farthest reaches of Arabia, further even than Scenic Babylon or Assyria, which is called Helios Rising, because it is pretty much where the sun rises each day, and this Helios Rising place is right on the shore of the far-away ocean at the end of the world. We’ll get back to that edge of the world ocean stuff later.
Now, for Africa, the final continent. The bit closest to Arabia is called Cairopt, which is short for Cairoptius, and is also somewhat under Romaly control. It has many stone pyramids in it, as well as a life-sustaining river flowing through the desert. Much of Africa near the Flying Duck Sea is a huge desert called the Sahara Desert, and it is only inhabited by a few bands of travelling merchants or robbers. But along the actual coastline, or along the big river of Cairoptius, cities can spring up. A lot of the coast of Africa along the Flying Duck Sea is ruled by Phoenicia, especially the peninsula called Carthage, which is the principal enemy of Romaly and the Roman government. But while Phoenicia’s territory stretches along the coast from just past Cairoptius and it’s river’s delta, to the peninsula of Carthage and beyond, it stops when it gets close to the Duck Sea’s bill, where there is another land called Moraca-land, which is Roman, as it is just across a small channel from Madriddaine. Along the coast from Moraca-land, and now this coast has left the Flying Duck altogether and is the shore of well-open water, is the land of Atlasmountainland, named for the Atlas Mountains which are there. It isn’t really part of the Romaly territories, being mostly just a part of the Sahara that is close to the ocean, but there are no other powerful nations in the area, so it might as well be Roman. Now, moving back toward Cairoptius. Lots of desert, then the Cairoptius river. At this point, the river hasn’t reached Cairoptius itself, so this land, a self-governing body named Nubia, is upstream from Cairoptius and Roman rule. Nubia also borders the Red Sea. Now, look even further into the depths of Africa, farther and farther from its shores of Carthage and Moraca-land on the Flying Duck Sea. Near Nubia, there is Aethiopia, which is as far as any Roman or Athenzian knows about. Many of the places on the other side of the Sahara are totally unknown to the people of the rest of Africa, or other lands of Graeco-Roman world like Arabia or Europa, and vice versa. That vice versa is important, as it will prevent prejudice to understand it.
There are exotic jungle lands, about as jungle-filled as that swampy rainforest place from the Hindu world, and also grasslands, countries with names that were only given to them by their own people, like Ghana, and Tanzania, and Wakanda. Then, a bit of a way past those, Africa just ends, with a shoreline at the very limit of it, a land called Southmost Africa, for obvious reasons. And that is about all there is in the way of land on Graeco-Roman world. But now back to the oceans.
At the very extreme edges of this world, like on Hindu world, there is a great encircling ocean, which passes by parts of Africa, as well as the island of Dublindia, and parts of Germania, and the land of Helios Rising. It comes a bit more inward at four points: the sea between Aethiopia and Arabia, which leads into the Red Sea and the Sort Of Bent Pickle Shaped Sea; the bit near the other side of Africa, around Ghana, but not as far as Southmost Africa or Atlasmountainland; the beak of the Flying Duck; and a bit near the island of Londaine and Brussellium and Amsterdamerland and distant Germania, which is called the Sea of Amsterdamerland. But unlike on the Hindu world, the encircling ocean of Graeco-Roman world, well, at least the bit of it that is right up against the edge of the world, against the surrounding orb dome itself, is constantly turning clockwise around the world, forming a giant, extremely wide river called the River Oceanus. It is this river that passes by the shore of Atlasmountainland, or the farthest point of Dublindia, or much of Germania’s shore, or the coast of Helios Rising, or the tip of Southmost Africa. And that is all for a geographical description of Graeco-Roman world.
But what about its gods? Well, like Hindu world, Graeco-Roman world has many gods, but they are mostly crowded onto a single mountaintop in the country of Athenzia. A few drive the sun and moon, and some of them live in the ocean or underground with the ghosts, but that’s about it. Also there are junior-grade gods who are tied to a particular Roman or Athenzian town or household, but those don’t really count.
Now, soon, the world turtle approached this orb-shaped world. And then, with a huge crash, the world it was carrying hit the land and ocean part of the orb world head-on. Well, not exactly head-on, but pretty close. The collision was entirely intended, and it shattered a part of the blue dome, letting the surrounding waters of Hindu world flow with the River Oceanus. The collision stuck the worlds together, so that Far-tzi in Hindu world and the Arabian land of Helios Rising or Armenia or thereabouts in Graeco-Roman world were now pretty close, just a seething piece of River Oceanus apart. As for the River Oceanus, it began flowing around the edge of the Hindu world as well, forming a new flow path that was Lemniscate in shape, so it was renamed the River of Lemniscate. This change was actually rather good for the waters of Hindu world, because the new flow and current kept the oceans from falling over the edge of the world supported by the world turtle.
The gods of Hindu world and of Graeco-Roman world had a series of meetings to discuss how their businesses would be affected by the two worlds becoming one. For one thing, the sun, moon, and planets would have to be dealt with, as there were duplicates of all of them on both worlds, so both suns, moons, etc. would have to be fused in some way. But that was all sorted out, and Brahma and Zeus shook hands, sealing the deal forever.
The world turtle swam on, carrying not just the Hindu world, but also the Graeco-Roman orb-shaped world, which was attached and along for the ride. This extra weight didn’t affect the turtle much, except to slow it down a little because of the aftereffects of the original collision. Because the turtle was carrying the worlds through space, there was no friction, and so the addition of a second bit of world, which was attached at the location that was almost, but not quite, at the very front of the turtle’s original world-disc, didn’t affect how the turtle’s progress through the void kept going. Soon, the turtle reached its final destination.
It looked at first like a fuzzy, grainy image of a stick-figure, floating out in space. But it was actually a tree. An enormous tree. Some guy had gone and planted a tree in the middle of nothingness. Well, whoever had planted it, it was a huge tree, all right, as many times bigger than the Hindu world turtle as a regular tree is bigger than a regular turtle. The tree was called Yggdrasil, because of course if you’re going to be an annoying pain and plant a gigantic tree in the middle of space, you might as well be even more of an annoying pain by giving it a weird name, that probably means literally “Big tree,” or something like that, in some language, but if you don’t know that it just sounds weird. Anyway, this tree, Yggdrasil, was so big that it contained not seven, not eight, but nine different worlds or places on various parts of the tree. Here they all are, described in detail with analogies to parts of a human body, parts of a tree, and parts of the Graeco-Roman orb world, just to make a comparison of sorts.
The roots of the tree reached deep down, and two especially were very very long. These were like the legs of the tree, and one of them led to a world of pure heat, while the other led to a world of pure cold. These two worlds put together sort of corresponded to Tartarus in the orb shaped world. Then there was the rest of the root system, which was all tangled and looked like caves from the inside. This was like the pelvis of the tree, where the legs met. It was the world of Yggdrasil’s nine worlds where the mining dwarfs worked and lived. These dwarfs couldn’t breed, so some of them were able to build copies of themselves instead, because they were actually robots, or cyborgs. This land of roots and caves was like Erebus. Above the land of cyborg dwarfs, there was a world that was pretty regular-looking, like with land and sea, and human people. This was the main world of the tree, and it was called Midgard. It was at the level of the tree where a regular tree would be just poking out of the soil, so at ground level, which makes sense because it is where the real, actual ground is. Midgard was like the surface of Graeco-Roman world. Its geography was quite different from that of Hindu world or of orb world’s geography. For one thing, most of it was rather chilly. For another, instead of the main landmass being in the middle of the round disc of the world, it was concentrated only on one half of the world, the rest being mainly cold ocean. The mainland of Midgard consisted of a continent, with a sea called the Baltic Sea acting like the Mediterranean Flying Duck Sea, except that it was a bit smaller and didn’t even come close to nearly splitting the continent in half as much as the Flying Duck did on the Graeco-Roman world. Still, it sort of split off a large peninsula from the rest, even though the peninsula was in fact well attached to the remainder of the land. However, the place where it connected was cold tundra and ice, so it was pretty much like its own continent, or at least its own small landmass. This peninsula’s land area consisted of two nations--the one on the side that faced the open and cold sea was called Osloway; and the other, on the side that faced the more sheltered Baltic, was called Copenhagenden, after Copenhagen, an island off its warmer coast, in the straight that led into the Baltic sea from the bigger ocean. The reason that Copenhagen was indisputably tied to Copenhagenden was that the island had once been part of the main-land of Copenhagenden, until one of the goddesses of the nine Yggdrasillian worlds had married an ice giant, given birth to four sons, turned them into bulls, and plowed a ditch so deep around part of the land that it had separated and drifted out to sea, all in one single day. And thus the island of Copenhagen was born. To avoid confusing Copenhagen with Copenhagenden, just call Copenhagenden by its other name, Sweden. On the opposite side of the Baltic from Copenhagenden was the land of Fin, or if that is too short, Finfin. Or Fin-fin-fin. And inland from Fin-fin-fin is the land of Russia, which is actually rather small, as it is only the roaming territory of the Rus tribe, which it is named for. It is mostly cold forest. A bit nearby to the land of Russia, but warmer, is the land of Petersburghia, or if you don’t mind being religious with names, Saint-peters-burghia. And a bit of more land that’s quite near to that place, although towards the edge of the world of Midgard, is called Moscovshia. Now, the rest of this geography will be easier with a bit of terminology called Never Eat Soggy Waffles, which was invented by the people of Midgard. You see, Midgard is surrounded by a dome, a hemisphere of blue, that is the sky, just like the orb world, in a way. And there are four special robot dwarfs who stand at the edges of the world of Midgard to hold up this sky dome. These dwarfs are named North, East, South, and West, and sometimes they get tired and their friends, Northeast, Southeast, Southwest, and Northwest will come and stand in for them, to hold up the sky while standing at four other edges of the world. Anyway, the people of Midgard named four directions (and four other in-between ones) after the special sky-holding dwarfs. So, for example, Copenhagen is south of Copenhagenden, and Osloway is west of Copenhagenden. Fin-fin-fin is east of Osloway, and the place where the peninsula meets the rest of the continent is north of Fin-fin-fin, actually, at the northern end of it, because technically Fin-fin-fin, along with Osloway and Copenhagenden, stretch all the way up to the far northern icy shore, and the place where the peninsula meets the rest of the land. Now let’s use these new North, East, South, and West terms to fill in the rest of the map.
Just south of Fin-fin-fin are some smaller Baltic shore countries, like Estonia, Latvia, and such. And south of Osloway, across the mouth of the Baltic, is a small peninsula called Denmark. And south of that is a rather big and not so cold land called Deutschland, whose southmost parts are at the farthest southern point of land on the whole big continent, which ends at southern Deutschland in a sea coast. East of Deutschland is Warsauland, and east of that is a big area sort of between Petersburghia, Moscovshia, and Warsauland, that is mostly made of small counties and townships, and doesn’t have a single name of its own. And east of that is more of the edge of the main continent of Midgard world.
Now that is all there is, just about, of Midgard’s mainland piece. But the rest of Midgard is a very big ocean full of icebergs, as well as a few unusually large islands. Going west from northern Osloway, the first to be encountered is Iceland, an island that’s a home of volcanic activity. Then there is Greenland, an enormous island that is mostly just ice. Then there is the rather small island of Newfoundland, on the very end of the Midgard world, with only a bit more ocean between it and the very edge of Midgard itself. Finally, there is a surrounding band of ocean around all of Midgard, like with the other two worlds, except it is rather thin in fact, and there is an extremely huge and long sea serpent all around it. I suppose it is to sort of hold the water back from the edge. Finally, at the very northern edge of Midgard, and we’re talking way, way north, up past Greenland and its northern shore, and over the short width of surrounding water with the sea serpent inside it, there lies another world of the nine in the Yggdrasil tree, but this one is more like a tacked-on extension to the other eight. I mean, it’s like whoever built this Yggdrasil and all its worlds just went and made up a whole extra type of creature and just tacked on a ninth world for them to live in. The frost giants who live in the entirely glacier-filled realm of Jotunheim certainly seem like a late, last-minute change. Jotunheim looks like it’s just some glaciers from Greenland and northern Osloway, Copenhagenden, Russia, and Fin-fin-fin that were moved over past the edge of Midgard because it would be too expensive to construct a whole separate ninth world. It’s like when an apartment building or a house adds a cheap unsightly extension, or extra room, or they just board up some boards and make a rudimentary wall in a room to split it off into an extra room and a main piece, you know, or they enclose a corner to make it look like it’s another room in the house but you can tell just from the crude nature of the wall that it isn’t really an actual, different room, in the building. That’s what Jotunheim feels like. At least it’s an example of an easy way to get from one of the nine worlds to another, probably the only time in all the worlds of the big Yggdrasil tree when getting from one world to another is that easy. Anyway, moving on, further up Yggdrasil, the tree.
The trunk of Yggdrasil begins about in the center of Midgard, growing up and up to the sky, and through the sky and higher and higher up still. This means that Yggdrasil passes through Denmark, or southern Osloway, or southern Copenhagenden, which would explain why those three countries are the dominant three regions of Midgard as a whole. Anyway, once the trunk of the tree passes the sky dome, there is Asgard, the home of the gods, right on top of the sky, and right at the point where the branches start to come off of the trunk. So, Asgard is like Mount Olympus, the home of the gods of the orb world. It is also like where the heart or neck would be on a person. Now for the branches. There are two branches that stick out very far, farther than the rest, like the two main roots down below. One of these leads to a world of good elves, the other leads to a world of bad elves. Finally, at the very tip top of the tree, the very top of the head, the scalp, the hair, there is the last world of Yggdrasil, which is called the Celestial Sea, or Gimle, even though there is no water or oceans. It is actually a sea made of stars and starlight. This is the most mysterious of the nine worlds. And that is all about Yggdrasil.
The world turtle’s Hindu world, and the orb world attached to it, floated towards the big looming tree. Then, suddenly, both disc-shaped worlds crashed intentionally into Midgard, with the original Hindu turtle world hitting the South-east edge of Midgard, and the Graeco-roman world hitting more near the South-most edge of Midgard. The collision shattered the sky dome of Midgard in two places, one at and around the place where the dwarf named South stood his post, and the other at and around the place where the dwarf named South-east stood his post. The collision near the place where South stood also shattered a second hole in the orb around Graeco-roman world. But that wasn’t all the turmoil that happened. The River of Lemniscate touched the waters around the edges of Midgard at two places simultaneously, and the current of the big river began to flow through the waters of Midgard in two directions at once, causing turbulence as the different flows of water met head on. Soon, all the parts of the River of Lemniscate, and the surrounding ocean of Midgard, were full of whirlpools and storms, not to mention the hole where the three discs of the three worlds met but didn’t overlap, which was like a drain sucking water out and down and down and...back onto the oceans of Hindu-world because of the magic. All in all, it was like when there are three gears meshing together, and they can’t turn because it just doesn’t work. Except it’s water, and the water can’t just stay still once it’s flowing, so it has to go somewhere. Luckily, the Midgard Serpent, sea serpent of Midgard world, and Poseidon, the god of the seas of Graeco-roman world, and since the collision with Hindu world, also the god of the whole River of Lemniscate, were able to come to an agreement, and they redirected the course of the River of Lemniscate to go around the three worlds in a big Trefoil knot. Basically, if the River started by Southmost Africa, in Graeco-roman world, it would then flow clockwise around that world, past Moraca-land, and the edge of Madriddaine, and Dublindia, and some of Germania, then go loop over to part of Hindu world, pass around Siberia, continue clockwise past Nippon, and past Sing-a-Porrisia, and past Far-tzi. Then it would go past Arabia and then rest of Germania, and then it would go loop over to Midgard, and past Deutschland, and Newfoundland, and Greenland, and over the bits of ocean where the Midgard Serpent lay, and past the edge of Fin-fin-fin and Russia and Moscovshia and such, and finally loop back from Midgard to Graeco-Roman world, past the land of Helios Rising again, and around the bit of ocean near Aethiopia and the Arabian Peninsula, finally coming back around again to Southmost Africa. In total, there were three places where this River crossed itself. One was between Arabia and Far-tzi, the other between Germania and Deutschland, and the third between Moscovshia--and other south-eastern places in Midgard--and the bit of north-western land near the Sea of Caspian in Hindu world, like near Mongulsteppe but even farther away from Beijing-dom and Nippon. But in these places the current could sort of go under or over itself, like how the problem had originally been solved with the original two-world Lemniscate shape of River. Also, there was the problem of the River’s name. It couldn’t be the River Lemniscate anymore, because it was a Trefoil. So it was renamed as the River of Trefoil, and all three worlds together were called the Big Trefoil. Except that there weren’t exactly three worlds in total. There were a total of thirteen, in fact--Hindu world, Graeco-Roman world, Erebus, Tartarus, Midgard, Jotunheim, Robot dwarf world, Pure heat world, Pure cold world (also known as Hel with one L), Asgard, Good elf world, Dark elf world, and Gimle the Celestial Sea.
Now, speaking of Asgard and the rest, a way had to be devised to get between the three main worlds that had lands and oceans. Also, the sun and moon and stars of Midgard had to be merged somehow with those of the rest of the Big Trefoil’s worlds, but that sort of thing had already been done. Constructing a sort of bridge between the three adjacent worlds hadn’t been done when there were just two, and it could only be done now with three. The reason why it could be done now is that Asgard had a rainbow bridge to connect it to Midgard, and this sort of rainbow bridge could connect Asgard to Graeco-roman world, Asgard to Mount Olympus, Midgard to Graeco-roman world, Asgard to Hindu world, Midgard to Hindu world, Mount Olympus to Hindu world, Mount Olympus to Midgard, and Graeco-roman world to Hindu world. And possibly other connections as well. So the gods of Asgard set these bridges in place. Now anyone could travel between the three leaves of the Trefoil, as it were. But there was still one problem.
For the Trefoil system of circulating the River of Trefoil to work, there had to be some sort of island in between all the crossings over and under, in the very center of the Trefoil, so the water would never get into a big mess in the middle of the knot. So the gods of the three leaves of the Trefoil came together to take soil and rock from all three worlds and build an island, triangular in shape, to both steer the River of Trefoil on the right course, and plug the annoying hole in the middle of the three worlds. And just mark the center, of course. This island was not particular to any world, and it was often used as a meeting ground for the Olympians, Aesir, and Hindu gods alike. It was called Three Way Island, the name being a multi-layered pun centered on the fact that the different parts of the River of Trefoil flowed in three different directions around its shores. See if you can figure out all the meaning behind that name, if you may.
So that is how the Trefoil Worlds came to be. They are three circular discs of land and sea, surrounded by a Trefoil of seething ocean and connected by rainbows, and one has a turtle underneath it, who is now just stationary, as its purpose is over now, and it just floats there under its world, and another world of the Trefoil has a spherical orb around it, except for a couple holes where the River of Trefoil passes in and out, and finally the third piece, the final world of the Trefoil, had a huge tree growing through it, and several other worlds attached to it nonetheless, and finally a small triangle of an island right in the very center of it all, Three Way Island. And this is how they were from then onwards.
The End.
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