Nidhöggr

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A deer ( Dain, Dwalin, Duneyr and Durathror ) gnaws on the world tree. Medieval relief of Urnes stave church in Ornes , (Norway).
Nidhöggr gnaws at the world ash Yggdrasil from below. Detail from a 17th century Icelandic manuscript.

Nidhöggr , also Nidhögg, Nidhöggur or Nidhogg ( Old Norse Níðhǫggr "the hateful beating"), is a snake-like dragon in Norse mythology that lives on the world tree Yggdrasil and torments the dead.

swell

According to the song Grímnismál , Nidhöggr is one of the animals on the world tree Yggdrasil . On the one hand, he damages the tree down there by the trunk or on the roots, and on the other hand, he accepts the words that the squirrel Ratatöskr brings him from the eagle , which sits at the other end of the tree in the crown.

The Prose Edda builds on this description and adds that Nidhöggr lives together with many snakes in the Hvergelmir spring , which is located in Niflheim under the third root of the world tree. From there it gnaws at the root of Yggdrasil. In contrast to the Grímnismál , the Prose Edda has the squirrel convey messages from Nidhöggr to the eagle and evaluates their dialogue as an exchange of spite.

In the creation song Völuspá, on the other hand, Nidhöggr is not mentioned at all on the world tree, but only in the end times ( Ragnarök ), in which the murderers and the oath breakers and adulterers on the Nastrand beach of the dead reach a hall with the back of a snake where Nidhöggr drinks their blood . If the Kenning “Nasenbleicher” stands for Nidhöggr, he also tears up the dead at that time. After the Ragnarök are over, Nidhöggr embeds the corpses in his wings and rises with them from the underworld mountains of Nidafjöll and then sinks down with them. Where he will fly with them remains open. The nature of Nidhöggr is only described here, namely as a snake and at the same time as a dragon.

A different version of this passage from Völuspá is quoted in the Prose Edda . With the result that Nidhöggr does not suck or tear anyone in the Ragnarök, but only stays in the Hvergelmir spring after the Ragnarök and torments the dead there. The Prose Edda reports nothing about the flight of Nidhöggr or its nature .

Outside of the Edda, Nidhöggr is also mentioned in the Þulur . His name could therefore be used as Heiti (comparable to a poetic synonym) for snake.

research

In the Nordic cosmogony of the Middle Ages, Nidhöggr is a dragon that feeds on the blood of the dead in or after the end times. At least that's how you have to see it if you take the statements of the various texts as pieces of the puzzle of the same picture. If you take a closer look, however, at least two layers of myths can be distinguished in Nidhöggr's tradition, which are not congruent and probably come from different times.

In the Völuspá , Nidhöggr is described in his function as a dead dragon as if he had sprung directly from the Christian imagination of the Middle Ages. The path from the serpentine dragon, which torments the dead in the end times and appears as the underworld antagonist of Allfather , is not far to the antagonist of God, the great dragon, the old serpent called the devil and Satan , the one in the Apocalypse of John of the Archangel Michael is defeated ( Rev 12 : 7-9  EU ). Death kites are almost typical in the apocalyptic vision poetry of the Middle Ages. The Prose Edda completes this equation by placing the dragon in the Hvergelmir spring and thereby making it part of a Christian place of punishment. It also links this place with the New World after the end of times, while the Völuspá strictly speaking leaves that open and one can only interpret it into it.

The nature of Nidhöggr is not one hundred percent clear. In the Völuspá , Nidhöggr is called both nadr “snake” and dreki “dragon”. The flight of Nidhöggrs described in it, however, indicates a kite, since snakes cannot fly. Rudolf Simek uses this example to make it clear that there was apparently no clear separation between snake and dragon until the high Middle Ages. Snake could always mean dragon . It is precisely from this that it becomes clear that the nature of Nidhöggr is very close to the snake, which is confirmed by the company of many snakes at his side.

The snake played a greater role in the Germanic world in pre-medieval times, especially in the Bronze Age , than at the time the Eddas were written. As a chthonic animal, it was close to old fertility cults, which are ultimately about the return of life (spring) after death (winter). Possibly the snake had a special place in the cult of the dead, as indicated by the dragon Nidhöggr on the world tree, but also by the world- spanning Midgard snake .

The Christian character of Nidhöggr in the Völuspá can be used to interpret the description of his role on the world tree in the song Grímnismál , but this text can just as well stand on its own and describe another myth that is much older than the medieval coloring of Nidhöggr.

The snake or the dragon at the roots of the world tree or tree of life belong to the basic framework of the mythology of many peoples. You not only get in the Bible in the Garden of Eden in appearance, but also in Siberia and especially in the Indo-European peoples, for example in the figure Ladons the Greek tree of the Hesperides or Indian Nagas that the dispute with the eagle Garuda are who lives in a tree above them. There is another parallel to the argument on the tree in the Indo-European world: In a fable by the Roman poet Phaedrus , a cat on a tree creates enmity between an eagle in the air and a wild boar at the roots. However, it is no longer possible to determine exactly what the dispute between above and below is about. It is possible to understand the two counterparts as opposing poles of duality, but perhaps only a modern interpretation, as the examples of Ladon against Heracles and of the Nagas against Garuda show, which ultimately deal with access to the means to immortality. However, it is not generally accepted in science that Nidhöggr is an Indo-European heritage.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Rudolf Simek: Lexicon of Germanic mythology. 3. Edition. 2006, p. 296; John Lindow: Handbook of Norse Mythology. ABC-CLIO, Santa Barbara (USA) 2001, keyword: Nidhögg; Arnulf Krause: The gods and heroic songs of the Elder Edda . Philipp Reclam jun. Publishing house, Stuttgart 2004
  2. ↑ Lieder-Edda: Grímnismál p. 32, 35 (citation of the Lieder-Edda after Arnulf Krause: Die Götter- und Heldenlieder der Älteren Edda. Philipp Reclam jun. Verlag, Stuttgart 2004, ISBN 978-3-15-050047-7 )
  3. ↑ Snorri Sturluson: Prosa-Edda , Gylfaginning p. 15 f. (Citation of the Prose Edda after Arnulf Krause: The Edda of Snorri Sturluson. Philipp Reclam jun. Verlag, Stuttgart 1997, ISBN 978-3-15-000782-2 )
  4. ↑ Lieder-Edda: Völuspá pp. 38–39
  5. ↑ Lieder-Edda: Völuspá p. 50
  6. ↑ Lieder-Edda: Völuspá p. 66
  7. ^ Snorri Sturluson : Prosa-Edda , Gylfaginning p. 52
  8. ↑ Compare Rudolf Simek: Lexicon of Germanic Mythology. 3. Edition. 2006, p. 78
  9. ^ Karl Hauck: On the iconology of the gold bracteates, LX. In: Heinrich Beck, Dieter Geuenich, Heiko Steuer (Hrsg.): Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde. Vol. 31 (Continuity and Breaks in the History of Religion). 2nd Edition. Verlag Walter de Gruyter, Berlin - New York 2001, ISBN 978-3-11-017264-5 , p. 288.
  10. ^ Rudolf Simek: The Edda. Verlag CH Beck, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-406-56084-2 , p. 51.
  11. ^ Rudolf Simek: Lexicon of Germanic mythology. 3. Edition. 2006, p. 296.
  12. ↑ Compare John Arnott MacCulloch: The Celtic and Scandinavian Religion. First edition 1948, new edition Cosimo, 2005, ISBN 978-1-59605-416-5 , pp. 140, 166.
  13. ^ Rudolf Simek: Snake . In: Heinrich Beck, Dieter Geuenich, Heiko Steuer (Hrsg.): Reallexikon der deutschen Altertumskunde. Vol. 27. 2nd edition, Verlag Walter de Gruyter, Berlin - New York 2004, ISBN 978-3-11-018116-6 , p. 144.
  14. ↑ a b Rudolf Simek: Lexicon of Germanic Mythology. 3. Edition. 2006, p. 365.
  15. ↑ Compare Jan de Vries: Altgermanische Religionsgeschichte, Volume 2: Religion der Nordgermanen. Verlag Walter de Gruyter & Co., Berlin - Leipzig 1937, § 328
  16. ↑ Jan de Vries: Old Germanic history of religion, Volume 2: Religion of the North Germanic. Verlag Walter de Gruyter & Co., Berlin - Leipzig 1937, § 328
  17. ^ Martin Litchfield West: Indo-European poetry and myth. Oxford University Press, 2007, ISBN 978-0-19-928075-9 , p. 347 online
  18. ↑ For example Jean Haudry: Mimir, Mimingus et Visnu. In: Michael Stausberg , Olof Sundqvist, Astrid van Nahl (eds.): Continuities and breaks in the history of religion. Supplementary volume 31 of the Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde. Verlag Walter de Gruyter, Berlin - New York 2001, ISBN 978-3-11-017264-5 , p. 313 f., But without justification.