What hawk sits between the eyes of the eagle atop Yggdrasil?

The hawk sitting between the eyes of the eagle atop Yggdrasil is Veðrfölnir, often anglicized as Vedrfölnir.

The image comes from Snorri Sturluson’s Prose Edda, especially the section called Gylfaginning. There, an unnamed eagle perches in the branches of Yggdrasil, the immense ash tree at the center of Norse cosmology, while Veðrfölnir sits between its eyes. The eagle is said to possess great knowledge, but the surviving myth does not clearly explain the hawk’s job.

Veðrfölnir is sometimes confused with Hræsvelgr, a jötunn who takes the form of an eagle, or with Ratatoskr, the squirrel that races up and down the tree. Ratatoskr carries hostile or gossipy messages between the eagle above and Níðhöggr below. The hawk itself is not described as the messenger.

The eagle-and-rooted-monster arrangement has parallels in other cosmological traditions, and scholars have suggested that Veðrfölnir may be linked symbolically to the eagle’s wisdom. Unlike the eagle and Níðhöggr, however, the hawk is named only in the Prose Edda, not the Poetic Edda.