Who is Nidhogg?
What we know from myth, history, and inspiration
Yggdrasil, the great World Tree, has its roots in the lowest worlds - Niflheim and Helheim. Its most obvious third protruding root is found, huge and dark, at the great well Hvergelmir in Niflheim. Hvergelmir means "Boiling Cauldron", and all the rivers of the Nine Worlds flow from its churning depths. Next to it lies the third root of the Tree, drawing nourishment form the Well, so huge that it runs off the boundary of Niflheim and into Helheim; the Wall of Helheim incorporates it like it would a small mountain. The dragon Nidhogg, a thirty-foot multicolored wingless earth-dragon, crawls back and forth over that wall to gnaw at the great root on both sides of the border.
When not coiled around the lowest
root of the World Tree, Nidhogg crosses the wall into Helheim and visits Dead
Man's Shore. This is a place where the sun never shines, and the dark waters of
Helheim's ocean stretch out between the worlds. Corpses and the shed skins of
serpents litter the shore. Nidhogg comes down periodically in her task as
carrion-remover and eats the corpses. Many fear her because of her job, but she
is an important part of the cycle. Like Hela who is intimately connected with
the life-phase of rotting, Nidhogg represents the next part of the cycle, when
the rot feeds life. Whether it is carrion-eaters or the earth itself, nothing
grows unless something dies and rots to feed it.
This is a lesson that modern Westerners have a hard time with. We are taught to hide and ignore all aspects of natural waste. Fecal material is flushed away to contaminate a water supply rather than to be returned to the earth which can better handle it. Menstrual blood is hidden shamefully and not spoken of. Crawling insects are considered disgusting and foul, especially those who clean up corpses. The terminally ill, with all their smells and wastes, are secreted away in hospitals where no one has to look at them. Few have worked intimately with a compost heap, watching food waste slowly rot into rich, black soil filled with worms and other life. In the fantasy world that modern Western society has created, all waste - and as a corollary, anything that is aesthetically unpleasing - is flushed away and vaporized, and we never have to worry about it again. Nidhogg, as the ultimate carrion-eater, has other lessons for us.
When you meet her at Dead Man's Shore, Nidhogg is sometimes followed by her brood of serpent-children, whose names include Goin, Moin, Grabak, Grafvollud, Ofnir, and Svafnir. They cluster around Nastrond, the Hall of Serpents, but will not attack anyone outside of that hall, on Hela's orders. They might come at you and try to knock you off your feet, however, or squirm around your ankles in an attempt to disconcert you. Do not show fear; address them individually in a polite and conversational voice, as if they were human beings offering to shake your hand rather than great serpents coiling around your ankles. They will respect your courage and courtesy (especially the latter) and may even speak to you. The Hel-serpents talk in hissing whispers; human speech is not easy for them and they rarely bother with it, so if they talk to you, you can consider yourself honored.
The serpent surrounding the base of the Tree is not unique to Northern cosmology; in Babylonia the huluppu tree grows with a dragon at the base and an eagle at the top, and the dark goddess Lilith in the middle. The cosmic tree cannot exist without all its functions, and Nidhogg performs an important function - that of removing dead wood and stimulating new growth. By gnawing away the dying root-parts of the Tree, Nidhogg stimulates new branches and leaves in the rest of the Tree, and new root matter. Like Tanin'iver, the blind dragon at the base of the dark goddess Lilith's tree, Nidhogg performs her unthanked task without complaint. If we are to be able to appreciate all parts of the cycle, we must understand and appreciate her duty as well.
Artwork by Katie Hofgard.