Who Goes Bump In Yggdrasil?
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Four stags or harts (male Red Deer) eat among the branches of the World Tree Yggdrasill. According to thePoetic Edda, the stags crane their necks upward to chomp at the branches. Their names are given as Dáinn, Dvalinn, Duneyrrand Duraþrór. An amount of speculation exists regarding the deer and their potential symbolic value.
Early suggestions for interpretations of the stags included connecting them with the four elements, the four seasons or the phases of the moon.
In his influential 1824 work, Finnur Magnússon suggested that the stags represented winds. Based on an interpretation of their names, he took Dáinn (‘The Dead One’) and Dvalinn (‘The Unconscious One’) to be calm winds and Duneyrr and Duraþrór to be heavy winds. The stags biting the leaves of the tree, he interpreted as winds tearing at clouds. The fact that Dáinn and Dvalinn are also dwarf names, he connected with dwarves having control of winds.
Many scholars, following Sophus Bugge, believe that stanzas 33 and 34 of Grímnismál are of a later origin than those surrounding them. Finnur Jónsson surmised that there was originally only one stag which had later been turned into four, probably one on each side.This is consistent with stanza 35 of Grímnismál, which mentions only one hart:
Grímnismál 35Askr Yggdrasilsdrýgir erfiðimeira enn menn viti:hiörtr bitr ofan,en á hliðo fúnar,skerðer Níðhöggr neðan.Thorpe’s translationYggdrasil’s ashhardship suffersgreater than men know of;a hart bites it above,and in its side it rots,Nidhögg beneath tears it.It has been suggested that this original stag is identical with Eikþyrnir, mentioned earlier in Grímnismál.
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Veðrfölnir (Old Norse ”storm pale,” ”wind bleached” or “wind-witherer”) is a hawk sitting between the eyes of an unnamed eagle that is perched on top of the world tree Yggdrasil. Veðrfölnir is sometimes modernly anglicized as Vedrfolnir orVethrfolnir.
The unnamed eagle is attested in both the Poetic Edda, compiled in the 13th century from earlier traditional sources, and the Prose Edda, written in the 13th century by Snorri Sturluson, while Veðrfölnir is solely attested in the Prose Edda. In both the Poetic Edda and the Prose Edda, the squirrel Ratatoskr couriers messages between the unnamed eagle and Nidhöggr, the wyrm that resides below the world tree. Scholars have proposed theories about the implications of the birds
John Lindow points out that Snorri does not say why a hawk should be sitting between the eyes of an eagle or what role it may play. Lindow theorizes that “presumably the hawk is associated with the wisdom of the eagle” and that “perhaps, like Odin’s ravens, it flies off acquiring and bringing back knowledge”.
Hilda Ellis Davidson says that the notion of an eagle atop a tree and the World Serpent coiled around the roots of the tree has parallels in other cosmologies from Asia, and that Norse cosmology may have been influenced by these Asiatic cosmologies from a northern route. On the other hand, Davidson adds, the Germanic peoples are attested as worshipping their deities in open forest clearings, and that asky god was particularly connected with the oak tree, and therefore “a central tree was a natural symbol for them also”
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Running Between
Ratatoskr (Old Norse, generally considered to mean “drill-tooth” or “bore-tooth”) is a squirrel who runs up and down the world tree Yggdrasil to carry messages between the unnamed eagle, perched atop Yggdrasil, and the wyrm Níðhöggr, who dwells beneath one of the three roots of the tree. Ratatoskr is attested in the Poetic Edda, compiled in the 13th century from earlier traditional sources, and the Prose Edda, written in the 13th century by Snorri Sturluson. Scholars have proposed theories about the implications of the squirrel.
