Níðhöggr
Norse · numen · primordial · Recorded classification
The world tree is not healthy and is not supposed to be. A dragon eats the root, deer eat the leaves, the trunk rots, and the tree stands anyway — a cosmology in which the structure of everything is maintained by being continually damaged. Níðhöggr is the damage at the bottom, and níð, the word in his name, is the Norse legal term for the insult that strips a man of his standing.
Domains
- dragons
- decay
Relations
- enemy: RatatoskrStrictly the quarrel is with the eagle, whom the sources leave unnamed and whom this batch therefore does not record; the squirrel is the party Níðhöggr actually deals with.Reference treatment of Ratatoskr carrying insults between Níðhöggr and the eagle to stir up hostility. (secondary)
Sources
- Níðhöggr is the dragon that gnaws the root of Yggdrasil from beneath in Niflheim, in a quarrel with the eagle at the crown conducted through the squirrel Ratatoskr, the two of them keeping the tree in a cycle of decay and renewal.: Reference treatments of Níðhöggr, Ratatoskr and Yggdrasil. (secondary)