In the "Ramayana", an ancient Sanskrit epic poem, a squirrel assists in constructing a bridge from India to Sri Lanka to help Rama rescue his wife Sita. Rama rewards the squirrel by stroking his back with his three middle fingers, thus giving the Indian palm squirrel the three white stripes that appear on its back. In Norse mythology, the squirrel Ratatoskr is a messenger who scurries up and down the trunk of the world-tree Yggdrasil, carrying malicious gossip and insults back and forth between the dragon Níðhöggr, who sits at the bottom of the tree gnawing on its roots, and the hawk Veðrfölnir, who sits at the top of the tree keeping watch. According to Richard W. Thorington, Jr. and Katie E. Ferrell, this legend may have originated from the red squirrel's habit of giving a "scolding alarm call in response to danger", which some Norsemen may have imagined as insults.