INTRO:
Hello and welcome to Myth Monsters, my name is Erin and I’ll be your host for these little snack bite size podcasts on folklore and mythical monsters from around the world.
These podcasts focus on the actual cryptids, folklore and mythic monsters from global mythology, rather than focusing on full stories of heroes and their big adventures.
I’ll also be dropping in some references that they have to recent culture and where you can see these represented in modern day content so you can learn more, and get as obsessed as I am about these absolute legends of the mythological world.
I’ve had an amazing mythological month, and I’m actually presenting a Q&A live session for a elderly care residency on the same day this is due to go live on the Loch Ness Monster - so I’ve been prepping a presentation all week, if you’d like to see this - I’m thinking about releasing it as bonus content, let me know what you think about that.
DESCRIPTION:
Anyway, let’s get on with this week’s monster - we are heading over to Norse mythology this week and looking at a legendary little monster from this mythos - he is the squirrelling gossip of the gods, Ratatoskr.
So who is Ratatoskr? Ratatoskr is usually described as a red squirrel whose sole job is to carry messages along Yggdrasil, the Norse World tree at the centre of all of the Nine Norse Realms or worlds. He is mostly depicted as a larger squirrel than most, however, still no bigger than a human newborn, he has very long ears and is sometimes depicted as having a large horn in the middle of his head. However, when he is interpreted in modern times, this is usually not included.
He is considered a troublemaker and most importantly a gossip, he mostly transfers messages between a wise eagle who is unnamed at the top of the tree, and a dragon at the roots named Nidhoggr, who is forever chewing the tree itself. He delivers messages with spite and often creates rumours to incite animosity between the two other monsters. He does also deliver messages to the Gods in Asgard from all of the other realms, and delivers them from the Gods to others too, so he does have a more official messenger god status within the Norse pantheon.
So why does he do this? Well it’s believed that he had much higher ambitions within the pantheon, and actually wants to fell the World Tree himself, but lacks the size and damage to do so. So he taunts the others for doing this for him; when he tells the dragon that the eagle made a false comment about him, the dragon gnaws harder at the roots of the tree so that the falling tree would crush the eagle. Ratatoskr feeds this information back to the eagle, who rips off the branches of the tree to throw down at the dragon at the roots. Ratatoskr himself gnaws at the tree too, but of course only does a little damage.
He relishes in the drama between the two creatures at the peak and the roots of his tree, but there is also one other set of creatures who live on Yggdrasil, who do intentionally harm the tree. It’s said that Yggdrasil itself is always rotting on one side, to demonstrate continual destruction and rebirth, and four harts or stags help with this, as they also chew the branches of the rotting side. The World Tree is meant to stand for the ever evolving existence of life and death, and the animals who live upon it definitely help with this.
In some interpretations, Ratatoskr is more of a pot-stirrer than anything malevolent, but the damage to his home is still done by these creatures out of spite of the rumours he spreads.
He has no special powers other than he can speak and that he is a little larger than most normal squirrels. He’s also noted to be the only magical squirrel and is always mentioned to be male - meaning there is no record of his reproduction or birth. As all of the animals living on Yggdrasil are technically gods, they are all immortal and represent the ever-ongoing balance of good and evil attempting to impact life.
ORIGIN:
For his etymology, Ratatoskr is an Old Norse word of course. This comes from two roots: rata meaning traveller and not anything to do with rat or squirrel surprisingly, and toskr meaning tusk. Together they are interpreted as tusk the traveller or the climber tusk, which does make sense with his single horn or even a squirrel's gnawing teeth. It is argued that it could have come from Old English instead, meaning rat tooth - utilising the rat part in here.
There is also another theory on his name, and this is that it was inspired by a legendary drill called Rati. This was used as a legendary weapon of the King of the Norse Gods, Odin, during his quest to get the mead of wisdom, which was quite literally magic booze. He bore a hole in the mountain where the mead was kept and then transformed into a snake to get through to the barrel. He flew back to Asgard at the top of the world tree, which explains why the eagle and snake are the guardians of the top and bottom of it. Due to Ratatoskr’s gnawing nature on the tree, it makes sense that this might have some inspiration to his name and even think that the etymology of his name means Rati’s Tooth.
For the history of this monster, if you’ve listened to any of my Norse myth tellings before - you’ll know that most of them come from the Poetic Edda, which is an incredible old collection of Old Norse poems that really are how we know so much about Norse mythology. This book is written by unknown authors, but we believe that it was written in around the 10th century, which was during the last part of the Viking era. The Viking age was considered to be between 793 AD and 1066 AD, which was the date of the invasion of England by the Normans at the Battle of Hastings.
Within the Edda, in the poem Grimnismal, Odin tells the reader about the squirrel messenger that runs about the world tree;
Ratatosk is the squirrel who there shall run
On the ash-tree Yggdrasil;
From above the words of the eagle he bears,
And tells them to Nithhogg beneath.
He was mentioned again in another poem, which I’d love to tell you the name of but I literally could not figure out how to pronounce it at all, but it’s chapter 16 if you want to know;
An eagle sits at the top of the ash, and it has knowledge of many things. Between its eyes sits the hawk called Vedr folnir. The squirrel called Ratatosk runs up and down the ash. He tells slanderous gossip, provoking the eagle and Nidhogg.
Here we actually find out that the eagle is still unnamed, but has a hawk sitting between its eyes that is named, indicating how massive the eagle must be too.
Ratatoskr has even gone on to be in further European writing, most famously in Grimm’s tales - where Jacob Grimm wrote that Ratatoskr helped maintain the balance in the Tree of Life by keeping it trimmed by causing tension and destruction, but keeping the tree straight and allowing it to grow anew.
We believe that Ratatoskr was inspired by red squirrels that are found in Norway and other Scandinavian countries, as well as in the neighbouring UK islands. They have now been dominated by invasive grey squirrels in the UK all the way up to Scotland, but they are still remarkably common in Sweden and Norway during the summer months. Unfortunately, the grey squirrel is also displacing these there, so hopefully we will still have these gorgeous critters around in years to come.
As these were most likely much more common within the Viking era, it makes sense that this lovely ginger squirrel ended up being a part of their mythos. The reason as to why a squirrel is a messenger of the Gods is simple, if you’ve ever gone up to a squirrel in a tree - they may chatter at you, making an almost screeching sound. Due to the chattering nature of their mouths, it looks like they’re shouting obscenities at you, and so the idea of the gossip loving, troublemaking squirrel makes sense - as well as their general mischievous behaviour.
For messengers of the gods though, animals are not uncommon to see as these important figures throughout world mythology. Odin himself had messenger ravens, Hugin and Munin who we will cover in a separate episode of course, as well as Ratatoskr who acted as more of a messenger for all the Norse pantheon. There was a messenger God too, Hermod - who was the son of Odin, but there really were not many stories about him. Whilst the Greeks and Romans had messenger Gods too in Hermes and Mercury respectively, owls, doves and ravens were also used within this mythos too - usually being connected to specific gods who had them as their sacred animal such as Athena with owls and doves with Aphrodite for example.
CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE:
Now onto modern media, this one was interesting because there are loads of video games with Ratatoskr specifically in, however, not many of anything else. So I’ve popped in all of the games just for him, but the rest are messenger god and animal bits of media.
For art, you can see the classic Norse art of Ratatoskr in the 17th century paintings of him, however, there is no author or anything attached to this - so that’s about all I’ve got. Otherwise, as always, check out some of the really cool independent artwork this week.
In movies, we have; The Golden Compass, Thumbsucker, Closet Monster, Asterix and the Vikings, Early Man, Valiant, The Mummy Returns, Robin Hood: Men in Tights, Top Secret!, The Great Race, The LEGO Movie & Gulliver's Travels.
For TV, we have; American Gods, His Dark Materials, The Maxx, City of Ghosts, A Discovery of Witches, Allo Allo, Peter Pan and the Pirates, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Last Exile, Pokemon, One Piece, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, Pushing Daisies, Blackadder Goes Forth, The Owl House, Hercules: The Animated Series, Amphibia & Game of Thrones.
In video games, we have ones such as; SMITE, God of War: Ragnarok, God of War, Young Thor, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, Magic: the Gathering, Wizard101, Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World, La-Mulana 2, Guild Wars 2 & Jotun.
My book recommendation this week is to have a look at the Poetic Edda, there is no author - but you can get it on Amazon! I would also recommend Norse Mythology: Tales of the Gods, Sagas and Heroes by Mary Litchfield for some epic tales of Norse adventures.
DO I THINK THEY EXISTED?
Now it’s time for, do I think they existed?
I mean, he’s a squirrel - that’s about all I have to say on the topic really. I think it makes sense that this animal was utilised in Norse mythology as they were so common throughout the location at the time. It also makes sense as squirrels are known to be a little bit naughty, and they do definitely shout at you.
I like the idea of Ratatoskr being a bit more evil than we easily give him credit for, that he secretly wants to bring down the life source of all of creation but ends up accidentally continuing the cycle of life and death through his actions and gossip. I do also like that he just lives for the drama - I think if I was stuck on a giant tree being someone’s unpaid messenger I would do the same.
I’ve actually never seen a red squirrel, which is super sad - but hopefully my next visit to Scotland in October will prove successful in seeing one. I’ve been bitten by a squirrel before in the US as well as the UK, so as much as I think they are very cute, they are also vicious when it comes to giving them food.
But what do you think? Did Ratatoskr spread gossip through the nine realms? Let me know on Twitter!
OUTRO:
A slightly different monster this week, one that is a little bit of an antagonist - but cute enough to forgive. I love covering Norse myths, so this one has been so fun to do.
Next week, we’re heading over to Hindu and Buddist folklore to look at a musical Himalayan creature - get your Kinnari vina ready for the Kinnara next Thursday!
For now, thank you so much for listening, it’s been an absolute pleasure. If you enjoyed this podcast, please give it a rating on the service you’re listening on - I’ve got the twitter for any questions, or suggestions on what monsters to cover next and I’d love to hear from you. The social media handles for Tiktok, Youtube and Instagram are mythmonsterspodcast, and twitter is mythmonsterspod. But all of our content can be found at mythmonsters.co.uk - you can also find us on Goodpods, Buymeacoffee and Patreon if you want to help me fund the podcast too.
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But for now, stay spooky and I’ll see you later babes.