Chapter 16

Then Gangleri said, ‘What more of importance can be said about the ash?’

High replied, ‘There is much to be told. An eagle sits in the branches of the ash, and it has knowledge of many things. Between its eyes sits the hawk called Vedrfolnir [Wind Bleached]. The squirrel called Ratatosk [Drill Tooth] runs up and down the ash. He tells slanderous gossip, provoking the eagle and Nidhogg. Four stags called Dain, Dvalin, Duneyr and Durathror move about in the branches of the ash, devouring the tree’s foliage.¹ In Hvergelmir there are so many serpents with Nidhogg that no tongue can count them. As it says here:

The ash Yggdrasil endures hardship, more than men know. A stag bites from above and its sides rot; From below Nidhogg gnaws.

(The Lay of Grimnir. 35)

‘So it is said:

More snakes lie under the ash Yggdrasil than any old fool imagines. Goin and Moin, they are Grafvitnir’s sons, Grabak and Grafvollud, and Ofnir and Svafnir will always, I believe, eat away the tree’s shoots.

(The Lay of Grimnir. 34)

‘It is also said that those norns who live beside Urd’s Well draw water every day from the spring and that they splash this, mixed with the mud that lies beside the well, over the ash so that its branches will not wither or decay. That water is so sacred that all things which come into the spring become as white as the membrane called skjall [skin] which lies on the inside of the eggshell. As it says here:

I know an ash, it is called Yggdrasil, a high, holy tree, splashed and coated with white clay. From it come the dews that fall in the valleys. It will always stand green over Urd’s Well. (*The Sibyl’s Prophecy. 19*)

‘People call the dew, which falls to the earth, honey dew, and bees feed on it. Two birds nourish themselves in the Well of Urd. These are called swans, and from them comes the species of bird with that name.’