Níðhöggr

Níðhöggr gnaws the roots of Yggdrasill in this illustration from a 17th-century Icelandic manuscript.

In Norse mythology, Níðhǫggr (Malice Striker, often anglicized Nidhogg^[1]) is a dragon who gnaws at a root of the world tree, Yggdrasil. In historical Viking society, níð was a term for a social stigma implying the loss of honor and the status of a villain. Thus, its name might refer to its role as a horrific monster or in its action of chewing the corpses of the inhabitants of Náströnd: those guilty of murder, adultery, and oath-breaking, which Norse society considered among the worst possible crimes.

Orthography

In the standardized Old Norse orthography, the name is spelled Níðhǫggr, but the letter 'ǫ' is frequently replaced with the Modern Icelandic ö for reasons of familiarity or technical expediency.

The name can be represented in English texts with i for í; th, d or (rarely) dh for ð; o for ǫ and optionally without r as in Modern Scandinavian reflexes. The Modern Icelandic form Níðhöggur is also sometimes seen, with special characters or similarly anglicized. The Danish forms Nidhug and Nidhøg can also be encountered; or Norwegian Nidhogg and Swedish Nidhögg.

Prose Edda

According to the Gylfaginning part of Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda, Níðhǫggr is a being which gnaws one of the three roots of Yggdrasill. It is sometimes believed that the roots are trapping the beast from the world. This root is placed over Niflheimr and Níðhǫggr gnaws it from beneath. The same source also says that "[t]he squirrel called Ratatoskr runs up and down the length of the Ash, bearing envious words between the eagle and Nídhǫggr [the snake]."^[2]

In the Skáldskaparmál section of the Prose Edda Snorri specifies Níðhǫggr as a serpent in a list of names of such creatures:

These are names for serpents: dragon, Fafnir, Jormungand, adder, Nidhogg, snake, viper, Goin, Moin, Grafvitnir, Grabak, Ofnir, Svafnir, masked one.^[3]

Snorri's knowledge of Níðhǫggr seems to come from two of the Eddic poems: Grímnismál and Völuspá.

Later in Skáldskaparmál, Snorri includes Níðhǫggr in a list of various terms and names for swords.^[4]

Poetic Edda

The poem Grímnismál identifies a number of beings which live in Yggdrasill. The tree suffers great hardship from all the creatures which live on it. The poem identifies Níðhǫggr as tearing at the tree from beneath and also mentions Ratatoskr as carrying messages between Níðhǫggr and the eagle who lives at the top of the tree. Snorri Sturluson often quotes Grímnismál and clearly used it as his source for this information.

The poem Völuspá mentions Níðhöggr twice. The first instance is in its description of Náströnd.

Eysteinn Björnsson's edition	Bellows' translation	Dronke's translation
Sal sá hon standa sólu fjarri Náströndu á, norðr horfa dyrr. Fellu eitrdropar inn um ljóra, sá er undinn salr orma hryggjum. Sá hon þar vaða þunga strauma menn meinsvara ok morðvarga ok þanns annars glepr eyrarúnu. Þar saug Niðhöggr nái framgengna, sleit vargr vera— vituð ér enn, eða hvat ?	A hall I saw, far from the sun, On Nastrond it stands, and the doors face north, Venom drops through the smoke-vent down, For around the walls do serpents wind. I there saw wading through rivers wild treacherous men and murderers too, And workers of ill with the wives of men; There Nithhogg sucked the blood of the slain, And the wolf tore men; would you know yet more?	A hall she saw standing remote from the sun on Dead Body Shore. Its door looks north. There fell drops of venom in through the roof vent. That hall is woven of serpents' spines. She saw there wading onerous streams men perjured and wolfish murderers and the one who seduces another's close-trusted wife. There Malice Striker sucked corpses of the dead, the wolf tore men. Do you still seek to know? And what?

Níðhöggr is also mentioned at the end of Völuspá, where he is identified as a dragon and a serpent.

Eysteinn Björnsson's edition	Bellows' translation	Dronke's translation
Þar kømr inn dimmi dreki fljúgandi, naðr fránn, neðan frá Niðafjöllum. Berr sér í fjöðrum —flýgr völl yfir— Níðhöggr nái— nú mun hon søkkvask.	From below the dragon dark comes forth, Nithhogg flying from Nithafjoll; The bodies of men on his wings he bears, The serpent bright: but now must I sink.	There comes the shadowy dragon flying, glittering serpent, up from Dark of the Moon Hills. He carries in his pinions —he flies over the field— Malice Striker, corpses. Now will she sink.

The context and meaning of this stanza are disputed. The most prevalent opinion is that the arrival of Níðhǫggr heralds Ragnarök and thus that the poem ends on a tone of ominous warning.

Níðhǫggr is not mentioned elsewhere in any ancient source.

Modern culture

The Nidhogg appears in games such as Fate of the Norns,^[5]Tower of Saviors, Age of Mythology, Final Fantasy XIV, Megami Tensei, World of Warcraft,^[6] and the 2014 indie fencing game Nidhogg. Although not in the game, Nidhogg is shown as a comparison for Alduin, the main antagonist of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, in the sense both feed on the dead and are the symbols of destruction. In Alduin's case he feeds on the souls of the dead in Sovngard, the afterlife of the natives of Skyrim and is prophecised to bring the end of the world, gaining the title World-Eater which could be a reference to Nidhogg's gnawing at the roots of Yggdrasil.

Nidhogg is the subject of the song "On a Sea of Blood" from the album Jomsviking by Swedish melodic death metal band Amon Amarth.

See also

• Jörmungandr

References

1. While the suffix of the name, -höggr, clearly means "striker" the prefix is not as clear. In particular the length of the first vowel is not determined in the original sources. Some scholars prefer the reading Niðhöggr (Striker in the Dark).
2. Gylfaginning XVI, Brodeur's translation.
3. Faulkes translation, p.137
4. Faulkes translation, p.159
5. Valkauskas, Andrew (2015). Denizens of the North (1st ed.). Canada: Pendelhaven. pp. 96–97. ISBN 9780986541469.
6. "Nithogg". Wowhead. Retrieved 2016-10-17.

Bibliography

• Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon (1989). Íslensk orðsifjabók. Reykjavík: Orðabók Háskólans.
• Bellows, Henry Adams (trans.) (1923) The Poetic Edda. New York: The American-Scandinavian Foundation. Available online in www.voluspa (org).
• Brodeur, Arthur Gilchrist (trans.) (1916). The Prose Edda by Snorri Sturluson. New York: The American-Scandinavian Foundation. Available at Google Books.
• Dronke, Ursula (1997). The Poetic Edda : Volume II : Mythological Poems. Oxford: Clarendon Press. In particular p. 18 and pp. 124–25.
• Eysteinn Björnsson (ed.). Snorra-Edda: Formáli & Gylfaginning : Textar fjögurra meginhandrita. 2005. Available online.
• Eysteinn Björnsson (ed.). Völuspá. Available online.
• Faulkes, Anthony (transl. and ed.) (1987). Edda (Snorri Sturluson). Everyman. ISBN 0-460-87616-3.
• Finnur Jónsson (1913). Goðafræði Norðmanna og Íslendinga eftir heimildum. Reykjavík: Hið íslenska bókmentafjelag.
• Finnur Jónsson (1931). Lexicon Poeticum. København: S. L. Møllers Bogtrykkeri.
• Lindow, John (2001). Handbook of Norse mythology. Santa Barbara: ABC-Clio. ISBN 1-57607-217-7.
• Thorpe, Benjamin (tr.) (1866). Edda Sæmundar Hinns Froða: The Edda Of Sæmund The Learned. (2 vols.) London: Trübner & Co. Available online in the Norroena Society edition at Google Books.