Níðhöggr

Thus, its name might refer to its role as a horrific monster in its action of chewing the corpses of the inhabitants of Niflheim: those guilty of murder, adultery, and oath-breaking, thus something akin to "Malice Biter".

In the standardized Old Norse orthography, the name is spelled Níðhǫggr, but the letter ǫ is frequently replaced with the Modern Icelandic ö for reasons of familiarity or technical expediency.

The name can be represented in English texts with i for í; th, d or (rarely) dh for ð; o for ǫ and optionally without r as in Modern Scandinavian reflexes.

The same source also says that "[t]he squirrel called Ratatoskr runs up and down the length of the Ash, bearing envious words between the eagle and Nídhǫggr [the snake].

It could be, however, as the prevalent themes of Norse mythology are those of change and renewal, that this could be a 'redemption' of the serpent, 'shedding' the corpses and beginning life anew, much like a macabre Phoenix, or perhaps, lifting the bodies of the righteous rulers mentioned two stanzas before (the stanza immediately before is considered spurious by translator Henry Adam Bellows), so that they can dwell in Gimle, and then either Níðhǫggr sinks, or the völva sinks, depending on the translation, and the poem ends.