The other inhabitants of Yggdrasil include: the Norn, three elderly wise-women who wove the tapestry which contained the threads of fate for everyone in the universe, 4 stags which ate the bark or foliage of the tree (Duneyrr/Duneyr, Durathror, Dvalin, Dainn/Dain), 4 serpents which assisted Nidhogg in chewing through the root of Yggdrasil (Grafvolluth, Graback, Goin, Moin), Ratatoskr, a squirrel who would run up the trunk of the tree, acting as the messenger for insults between Nidhogg and Vidofnir, the giant eagle perched atop the tree. The proper spelling of Nidhogg is Níðhöggr, which means "malice striker" or "tearer of corpses" in Norse. Nidhogg will survive Ragnarok and feast on all the wicked dead in its aftermath. Nidhogg is fated to finally eat through the entire root at Ragnarok, causing Yggdrasil to collapse. Nidhogg is located by Hvergelmir ("roaring kettle" source of all cold rivers), one of the three wells/wellsprings located around Yggdrasil, in Nastrond ("dead body hall"), located in the world of Helheim or Niflheim, where it feeds off of corpses to sustain itself. In Norse mythology Nidhogg was a dragon who gnawed on one of the three giant roots of Yggdrasil, the world tree (a giant Ash tree which connected all 9 worlds of Norse cosmogony).
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