Himinrún — Níðhöggr Below

Beneath Yggdrasill's ash, the root is being gnawed. Níðhöggr Below imagines a witness trapped beneath the damaged root. That first-person witness and the song's bodily, enclosed sensations are Himinrún's creative invention, not an Eddic character or a traditional first-person account. The Poetic Edda's Grímnismál 32 places Níðhöggr below the ash and has Ratatoskr bear the eagle's words down to it; stanza 35 says the ash suffers and that Níðhöggr gnaws from beneath. Völuspá also associates Níðhöggr with corpses in its vision of Nástrǫnd, but does not say that hall is physically beneath Yggdrasill's root. Snorri's Prose Edda, Gylfaginning 15–16, gives a more specific root-map and Hvergelmir setting; this song does not treat that later prose arrangement as an uncontested map of all Norse cosmology. Reading basis: Grímnismál (https://books.openbookpublishers.com/10.11..., Vǫluspá (Codex Regius) (https://books.openbookpublishers.com/10.11..., and Snorri's Prose Edda, Gylfaginning (https://vsnrweb-publications.org.uk/EDDAre.... From The Ninefold Ash — Track 07. Vocals: Hjalmar Vetr Music: Himinrún Artwork and static video: Himinrún / project visual production