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creature

Ratatoskr

The squirrel that runs up and down Yggdrasil carrying words, and in Snorri envious words, between the eagle at the top and the dragon Níðhöggr at the roots.

Ratatoskr is a squirrel on the world-tree Yggdrasil. The sources say very little about him, and both passages describe the same job.

In Grímnismál, Odin lists him among the tree's creatures: he runs on the ash and carries "the words of the eagle" from above down to Níðhöggr beneath Grímnismál 32. The poem does not say what the words are.

Snorri adds two things. The squirrel "runs up and down the length of the Ash", so the talk goes both ways, and what he carries are "envious words" between the eagle and the dragon Gylfaginning 16. Snorri's eagle sits in the top of the tree with the hawk Veðrfölnir between its eyes; Níðhöggr gnaws the roots from below.

The image is easy to read as a picture of the tree under strain from top to bottom, with a messenger stirring up quarrels in between, and many modern readers take it that way. The texts themselves do not explain it. The name is usually taken to mean "drill-tooth", fitting a gnawing animal.

In the sources

Quoted from the hosted translations; each line is checked against the text when the site is built. Select a reference to read it in context.

Ratatosk is the squirrel who there shall run On the ash-tree Yggdrasil; From above the words of the eagle he bears, And tells them to Nithhogg beneath.
Grímnismál 32 The squirrel carries the eagle's words down the tree to Níðhöggr.
The squirrel called Ratatöskr runs up and down the length of the Ash, bearing envious words between the eagle and Nídhöggr
Gylfaginning 16 Snorri makes the messages two-way and spiteful.

In modern culture

Not from the medieval sources.

Ratatoskr has become a popular comic figure in modern retellings: a gossip or troublemaker on the world tree. He appears in games such as God of War (2018) and Smite. The personality is an extrapolation from two short passages.

Related

Yggdrasil Yggdrasill The world-ash at the centre of the Norse cosmos: its roots reach the realms of gods, giants and the dead, and the gods hold court beneath it every day. Níðhöggr The dragon that gnaws the root of Yggdrasil from below and feeds on the dead at Náströnd; at the end of Völuspá it flies up with corpses on its wings. Veðrfölnir and the eagle Veðrfölnir An unnamed eagle sits at the top of Yggdrasil, and between its eyes sits a hawk called Veðrfölnir; the hawk is named only by Snorri. The four stags of Yggdrasil Dáinn, Dvalinn, Duneyrr, Duraþrór Four harts that browse the topmost branches of Yggdrasil; two of them share names with dwarves. Hvergelmir The spring from which all rivers flow, fed by the dripping horns of a hart in Valhall; Snorri puts it in Niflheim under a root of Yggdrasil, swarming with serpents.