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Poetic Edda

 Nibble with necks bent back;Dain and Dvalin,  ...... Duneyr and Dyrathror.
34.[1] More serpents there are  beneath the ash Than an unwise ape would think;Goin and Moin,  Grafvitnir's sons, Grabak and Grafvolluth,Ofnir and Svafnir  shall ever, methinks, Gnaw at the twigs of the tree.
35.[2] Yggdrasil's ash  great evil suffers, Far more than men do know;

    closely paraphrases stanza 33, but without elaboration, and nothing further is known of the four harts. It may be guessed, however, that they are a late multiplication of the single hart mentioned in stanza 26, just as the list of dragons in stanza 34 seems to have been expanded out of Nithhogg, the only authentic dragon under the root of the ash. Highest twigs: a guess; the Mss. words are baffling. Something has apparently been lost from lines 3-4, but there is no clue as to its nature.

  1. ↑ Cf. note on previous stanza. Nothing further is known of any of the serpents here listed, and the meanings of many of the names are conjectural. Snorri quotes this stanza. Editors have altered it in various ways in an attempt to regularize the meter. Goin and Moin: meaning obscure. Grafvitnir: "The Gnawing Wolf." Grabak: "Gray-Back." Grafvolluth: "The Field-Gnawer." Ofnir and Svafnir ("The Bewilderer" and "The Sleep-Bringer"): it is noteworthy that in stanza 54 Othin gives himself these two names.
  2. ↑ Snorri quotes this stanza, which concludes the passage, beginning with stanza 25, describing Yggdrasil. If we assume that stanzas 27-34 are later interpolations—possibly excepting 32—this section of the poem reads clearly enough.

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