why the bad beasties of Yggdrasil.

Sometimes an artist makes different choices on what is given emphasis in depictions of the Norse Cosmos. Most seem to go with the relative positioning of The Nine Worlds around the World Tree, but here the focus is more on the placing of the animals who are all inimical to the health of Yggdrasil:

The Scandinavian World, the frontispiece to Annie & Eliza Keary’s The Heroes of Asgard and the Giants of Jötunheim (1857 CE) shows where the creatures/monsters who wear on the tree reside.

In this, the idea of the tree's vulnerability (and perhaps its fateful approach toward its end-time encounter with fire during Ragnarök) is shown, but we then have also ask why these destructive beasts have been built into the tri-divinely intelligent design of the Norse Cosmos. Sure, the freezing world the Northmen lived in was cold and adversarial to sustaining life, so the structure of the larger unseen cosmos has to reflect that harsher worldview as, like men, the Gods themselves maintain by a needed harvest of apples, defensive walls, and exceptional weapons, and this longterm planning/readiness is always required to survive.

To NorsePlay this menagerie beyond straight-out tree-degrading wildlife, we could suggest that eagle Hræsvelgr's wings produce the winds which perhaps takes dragon Níðhöggr's provocations to ruffle his feathers enough to do so using squirrel Ratatoskr's delivery as that mechanism, and there's some extrapolation by Manly P. Hall that world serpent Jörmungandr is the binding gravity well (which opposes/compliments Thor's electromagnetic force), while, as the deer eat, dew is gathered on their antlers from brushing against the tree's leaves that forms into the flowing rivers of the worlds.

While all the above processes aren't nice to the tree itself, one could argue that there's a limited sacrificial cycle/purpose at work here for the winds, cohesion of matter, and flowing waters, which might explain the curious underscoring of the cosmic animals in this illustration.

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Guillermo Maytorena IV knew there was something special in the Norse Lore when he picked up a copy of the d'Aulaires' Norse Gods and Giants at age seven. Since then he's been fascinated by the truthful potency of Norse Mythology, passionately read & studied, embraced Ásatrú, launched the Map of Midgard project, and spearheaded the neologism/brand NorsePlay. If you have employment/opportunities in investigative mythology,  field research, or product development to offer, do contact him.