Description: The mythical ash tree Yggdrasill and the creatures that
inhabit it, i.e., the hawk Veðrfölnir who sits between the eyes
of the unnamed eagle at the top of the tree; the four stags
Dáinn, Dvalinn, Duneyrr and Duraþrór who eat its leaves; and the
squirrel Ratatoskr who carries messages between Veðrfölnir and
the dragon Niðhöggr who gnaws at its roots.
Source: AM 738 4to
Folio or Page: 43r.
Medium: ink drawing on paper with coloured ink wash
Date: 1680
Dimensions (mm): 90 x 285
Provenance:
Árni Magnússon received the manuscript from Magnús Jónsson in Leirá,
and he received it from Ingibjörg Jónsdóttir in Bæ. It was
previously owned by Sigurður Gíslason in Bæ.
Stofnun Árna Magnússonar á Íslandi received the manuscript on
September 30, 1991.
Rights:
Images from ÁM 738 4to are displayed
with permission from the Stofnun Árna Magnússonar í
íslenskum fræðum in Iceland. Link to
E-manuscript. This image is from f. 43r.
Bibliography:
Primary Sources
Reykjavik: Stofnun
Árna Magnússonar í íslenskum fræðum. AM 738
4to. 1680. Hand
copied paper manuscript.
Secondary Sources
Cleasby, Richard
and
Vigfússon
Guðbrandur
. An Icelandic-English Dictionary.
Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1957.
Artist Not
Known
Artist not known for this illustration in the AM738 manuscript.
Creatures: animals, birds, monsters etc.
Níðhöggr (non.)
Nidhoggr (en.)
A being which appears in both the Poetic and
the Prose Edda where it gnaws on the roots of
Yggdrasil and causes dissent in its interaction with the eagle who sits
at the top of Yggdrasil. Níðhöggr also appears at the end of Völuspá
where it gnaws on the corpses of the dead in a hall called Náströnd.
Níðhöggr is referred to as a snake in the Prose Edda and Grímnismál but
in Vóluspá it is also referred to as a dragon.
Plants
Yggdrasill (non.)
Yggdrasil (en.)
The ash tree at the centre of Norse cosmology that unites the nine
realms.
AM 738 4to (is.)
Edda Oblongata (la.)
This manuscript is known by its shelf mark AM738. However, it is also known as the Edda Oblongata
because its height is unusually tall compared to its width. It was
created circa 1680 by an unknown scribe.
EddukvæðiPoetic Edda
This collection of eddic poems was compiled by an anonymous scholar in
Iceland in the twelfth century. It was for a time mistakenly attributed
to a scholar named Sæmundr hinn fróði (1056–1133) and thus was known as
Sæmundar Edda.
Prose Edda (is.)
Snorri Sturluson's thirteenth-century prose work concerning Old Norse
mythology and poetics.
