The Everfrost Tree
The World-Tree at the Heart of Hibernfold
The Everfrost Tree is the great frost-laden tree at the heart of Hibernfold, the cold paradise planted by The Hoarfather at the Six Winters of Making. Its branches are “hung with unmelting frost and silver fruit,” and to eat of it was to share the endless, kept life of the Cold — life that does not thaw or die. It is the counterpart and counter-image of the warm Stolen Ember of the Kindling.
From Eden-Cold to the White Horizon
When the first humans grasped at warmth at the Kindling, they were barred from the Everfrost Tree, “lest they eat and live forever in their thaw” — and the way to it was kept by Frostwalkers with a blade of cold flame. Frostian hope is that the Tree appears again at the end: in The Revelation of Ice the Everfrost Tree stands in the midst of the White Horizon, its leaves “for the keeping of the nations,” freely eaten at last by the kept. It is thus a great sign of paradise lost and paradise restored, and is read as a type of the wood of the Whitening.