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Encirclement as the serpent's resting posture: neither text has the serpent attack · Jormungandr simply lies around all the earth in the surrounding sea, mouth closed on his own tail; Ahi lies 'couched around the waters,' holding the goddesses 'encompassed.' In both, the coil is a form of custody · the serpent holds a whole category of the world (the dry earth, the celestial waters) enclosed within its ring, keeping rather than devouring, and the enclosure persists until an outside force (Ragnarok, the bolt) breaks it.
All-father 'threw the serpent into the deep sea which surrounds all lands. There waxed the serpent so that he lies in the midst of the ocean, surrounds all the earth, and bites his own tail' · the serpent's whole existence is a closed coil laid around the inhabited world.
set against Rigveda 3.32
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