Of the Nine Worlds that surrounded the world-ash Yggdrasil, there was none as cold or as lonely and as desolate as the frozen landscapes of Niflheim. No warmth and no love was to be found here. There was only snow and fog and darkness and all that was living and dared to make their journey here would find the very air of Niflheim to freeze inside of their lungs and squeeze the life out of them. No tree, no blade of grass, no wolf, raven, stag, æsir or giant dwelt.
Here, at the base of the all-encompassing world tree where its roots entangled into a thick bramble that pulsated with life like vessels of lifeblood, there sprang forth the great well from which the world was birthed. Surrounded by the corpses of a thousand oathbreakers, of murderers and traitors, there was Hvergelmir, the sole source of warmth in this, by eternal winter plagued realm. Yet still, none would have been foolish enough to enter its waters, for it was always boiling and steaming and filled with thousands of black, biting serpents. A single river emerged from Hvergelmir and into Nifleheim known as Elivágar, and its waters were of ice.
But this was not the reason as to why this land was so barren. No, that was caused by that which dwelt beneath the tangled roots of Yggdrasil. A being so vast and of absolute evil, a creature that would every day bite and claw at the bark and at the root of the world-ash and grew only more powerful as it devoured the corpses surrounding Hvergelmir’s shore.
Yet one day, a wanderer came to Niflheim, lonely and hunched over. A woman, of tall stature yet crooked, the proud face marked by sorrow and her golden hair paled to grey from worry. Niflheim’s winds raked and bit at her skin and tore deep gashes , yet still she dragged herself across the barren icy landscape. Against the cold, she had cloaked herself in a mantle made of the feathers of a hawk, and her back bent under the weight of her grief. In her hands, she clutched an old wandering stick.
The moment she reached the shore of Hvergelmir, tired and exhausted by the cold and the raging storm, the hissing of the black serpents that dwelt in the boiling waters ceased. A thousand tiny, black heads rose up into the air and watched her with emerald eyes. The woman felt the urge to throw up as the smell of decay and rotten flesh pierced her nostrils and filled her lungs, but she kept striding forward, staff in her hands as if she was holding a spear. Cautiously, she went along the rim of Hvergelmir, for here the fog that lingered throughout of Niflheim was at its thickest and a single false step could cause her to trip and fall into the boiling primordial waters and to her death. Then and then she would lash out with hr staff against the head of a particularly meddlesome serpent that would try to sink its fangs into her legs, until she had finally circled the seething well and stood directly under the web-like thicket of roots and branches that upheld the mighty world tree. Panting and wheezing, the woman steadied herself on her staff, as the length and danger of the journey took its toll on her.
“Greetings, milady,” a voice squeaked in the panoply of roots above her. A shiver went through the branching and then, with quick leaps and fluttering whiskers, a second visitor approached lonely Hvergelmir: a squirrel the size of a grown man, with rust-coloured fur and curled horns growing from its forehead. It landed barely a dozen feet above the woman, its elongated, claw-bearing toes holding onto an overhanging branch, straightened up and daintily wiped its nostrils.“Pah, simply ghastly weather out there, isn’t it? Why, it raises my hackles every single time that I must force my way through this nasty cold. Does terrible things to my fur, I can tell you that much.”
“Rattatoskr.” The woman gave a nod and a tired attempt at a smile. “Fair greetings to you too. How are you doing?”“Oh, me? I’m just peachy – that is, if I’m not considering the thousands of icicles that are coating my entire pelt from my climb down here and prod at my flesh with every motion,” the giant rodent grumbled and stroke its whiskers. “But, do allow me to offer my sincerest condolences once more, milady,” it added with solemn voice. “Baldr was a light in all our hearts. I do hope his murderer received his just rewards for his crime.”
“Thank you,” the woman whispered, as her heart contracted in her chest to an ice-cold clump.
“But, what brings you here, milady?” Rattatoskr asked, and his bushy tail twitched with curiosity. “Are you here to deliver a biting message to the dweller of this home on behalf of the old bird as well?”
“No. But still, I must speak to Nidhogg.”Just as she had spoken, a tremor went throughout the world-ash’s massive trunk. Deep, deep in the heart of the root-thicket, something stirred, as a terrible hissing and growling echoed through the cavern, then a scraping as of nails raking across polished slate, a sluggish crawl…
Rattatoskr’s ears folded back against his head and the woman made a leap backwards as a colossal body covered in dark scales coiled and slithered out of the depths. Long, ivory talons pierced the roots of Yggdrasil and the creature’s nostrils fluttered as they sucked in the stench of the living that invaded its lair. Two lights flickered in the dark, as cold and pale and hollow as the eyes of a corpse.
“Well, well, well. What have we here? Such an honour to greet you here in my halls below all, Friggr,” the Corpse-Eater murmured, his whisper like the breaking of glaciers.
“The honour is all mine, Nidhogg,” Frigg said stiffly and straightened her posture into something that would beget more authority than she felt she had in this place. Stone-faced she let her eyes wander up the worm’s towering form, counted the rows of blood-splattered teeth, the to a heinous, mocking grin curled up black chaps and the burning hunger in those cold eyes.
“I’ve come here to ask you for your aid. It concerns…”
“The resurrection of your little sunshine Baldr, yes, I know.”
A deep chortle drew from Nidhöggr’s throat as he watched the æsir’s expression change to one of utter surprise. Slowly, he slithered further out of the darkness of the root and bramble thicket.
His feasting on the corpses that would wash up here in Niflheim and the biting at Yggdrasil’s root had caused the drake to grow larger and stronger with each passing day, ever since the dawn of time. He had grown so big that Frigg knew, if Nidhogg would play with the thought of eating her, not even Mjölnir, giants bane, the hammer of Thor himself would be able to move him, no, not even cause a scratch on him. In that case, her mantle of hawk feathers were Frigg’s only means of escaping this place, and even then she knew she would have to give everything she had to evade the long claws and the countless teeth of the enormous Corpse-Eater.Nidhogg continued:
“I sit at the heart of Yggdrasil itself, Frigg. It is from here, where the three grand roots of the ash grow and reach throughout the Nine Realms. And through Yggdrasil’s roots I hear the echoing cries of all the thousands upon thousands that have gathered to mourn Baldr’s death. A beautiful melody at first, but it slowly grows tiresome to me.”
“Then you know why I am. I beg you, Nidhogg, lend us your voice in our sorrow. Hel, Queen of the Underworld has agreed to bring back my dear Baldr, but only if all live in the Nine Realms, be it human, aesir or giant, beast or plant or even stone all cry for over his passing. From Asgard I went Álfheimr and Svartálfheimr, I travelled to Midgard and Vanaheim, even to Jötunheim and Muspelheim did I walk and bid its inhabitants to pledge their tears for Baldr’s return. You are he last of all in the Nine Realms that I come unto now.”
Friggr’s voice, prideful and stern finally broke and the icy clump that was her heart send waves of throbbing pain through her chest. “
I beg you, Nidhogg, please, cry a tear, a single tear for my Baldr so that I can embrace him amongst the living once again. Please.”
Tears spilled forth from the corners of the aesir’s eyes. She was so close. Wolfs and giants, elves and dwarves, man and beast, tree and crag had all felt a pull at their hearts when they had witnessed her sorrow over Baldr’s death and had shed their tears for him.Stoically, the colossal drake watched the aesir’s weeping. His eyes, pale as death itself, showed neither sympathy or mockery, they were just empty and were looking through her as if she wasn’t even there. But his long, black tongue shot forth from his mouth and tasted the air as she spoke, and a muffled, pleased growl emanated from deep within Nidhogg’s throat, as if her sorrow was like the sweetest caramel to him. Above Frigg, Ratatoskr nervously danced from one foot onto the other and pulled at his whiskers.
“What am I called?”
“I…I beg your pardon?”
“You heard me the first time,” it came hissing from the dragon’s mouth. “What is it, that I am called throughout the Nine Realms? What are my names?”
The queen of the aesir gathered her thoughts.
“You are Nidhogg. You are Corpse-Eater, Curse-Striker and He Who Strikes with Malice and the Serpent.”
“What is it that I do, Frigg? Tell me,” Nidhogg hissed and blew his foul, like dried blood smelling breath at the aesir queen. Frigg covered her mouth with her hand to suppress the urge to throw up, but otherwise she remained rigid and continued:
“You devour the murderers, the adulterers and oathbreakers. You feast on their blood. You maim and torture for your satisfaction. You gnaw at the root of Yggdrasil that runs through your realm, determined to topple the world-ash once and for all.”
“Yes, good. Very, very good Frigg. But that is not all I do. When Yggdrasil falls and Gjallahorn’s cry calls to the final battle, where do you think I will be?”
Nidhogg pushed himself further out of the tangled depths of Yggdrasil, his scales scraped across the bark and his claws cut deep trenches into the corpse-ridden earth. Frigg walked backwards, her face as white as snow. Rattatoskr did not fare any better. Under terrified squeaks the horned squirrel leapt and jumped up into the higher grounds of the root panoply and far out of reach of the now half-opened, teeth-bearing jaws of the worm.
“You, able to read and weave the threads of fate, you of all people should know. When Ragnarök dawns upon the Nine Worlds, when the world tree will break and fall into the waters of Hvergelmir and the worlds are devoured by flame, I will remain. I will feast on the corpses of the fallen, on the warriors of giants and aesir. Odin, I shall devour, you, I shall devour. I will drink the blood of the butchered and I will beat my wings and then I will leave the burning corpse of the Nine Worlds behind. All of you, I. Shall. Devour.
“So tell me, Frigg, Queen of all Aesir, why should I cry for your son?”
Everything inside of Frigg cried, screamed, tore at her mind to wrap herself into her cloak of hawk feathers and fly away. But the thought of her son and the chance to see him once again, it made her stand her ground.“Then it should matter little to you, if Baldr were to rise from the dead. Best case, you will receive another corpse for you to feast on.”Those words, they tasted like ash and filled her with hate and disgust at herself. But they seemed to have an impact. Nidhogg, Corpse-Eater, tilted his head and his pale eye rolled aimlessly in their sockets as he thought in silence.Then his the chops of his maw curled up into a wide grin.
“Yes. That is good, oh, that is very, very good,” he whispered and his shoulder lolled like that of a cat at the thought. “Yes, I will shed a tear for poor, poor Baldr. I will hear his ringing laughter and taste the tears of joy shed by his fellow aesir as they celebrate his return. Yes, I shall. Look!”
Nidhogg craned his long neck upwards and nodded at one of the vine-like roots, thick and pulsing, that trailed above their heads along the ceiling of the cavern.The root was grey and riddled with blister-like growths, some of which had burst open and from which spilled a colourless ichor. And then, Frigg noticed that this was not the only one sickly root.Dozens upon dozens of the smaller growths branching off of mighty Yggdrasil’s trunk looked like they had been befallen with some sort of deathly sickness, their colour off and each covered in gaping disfigurments.
“The tree grows weaker with every day,” Nidhogg’s sneered. “It won’t take much longer, then I’ll have gnawed my way through the last bit of its mighty root. Ragnarök approaches, Frigg. Mark my words.”
Then the dragon closed his eyes, and Friggr watched, as a single, thick, black tear, more a clump of sand than liquid sorrow dripped down from between the beast’s eyelids, ran down its cheek and then fell to the ground. A hiss and a trail of smoke rose where it burned itself through the earth.
“For Baldr,” Nidhoggr smiled. But Friggr had already wrapped herself in her hawk feather cloak and had fled away, as quick as the bellowing winds of Niflheim could carry her. Just away, away. Not once would she look away.But the heinous laughter of the worm would follow, chase her all the way out of the icy depths of Niflheim and all up to the gates of Asgard.
