Nidhogg
;)
in Germanic mythology, was the dragon living at one of the three roots of the cosmic tree Yggdrasil. The freezing mist and darkness of Niflheim, which was the lowest of the nine worlds, was where the dragon lived, ripping corpses apart and eating them. Between mouthfuls he would send the squirrel Ratatosk up the cosmic tree on an errand of insult, for the agile animal periodically disturbed two birds, an eagle and a hawk, who were perched at the very top. When momentarily tired of the taste of dead flesh, Nidhogg would gnaw at the root of Yggdrasil itself, presumably hoping to inflict damage on the cosmos in some way. Both Yggdrasil and Nidhogg were destined to survive the final catastrophe of Ragnarok, the doom of the gods and the end of the world. Neither fire nor flood could deter the dragon from its ceaseless feasting on the vast and inexhaustible supply of dead.