Before There Was a World
In the beginning there was neither earth nor sky, only a vast and silent emptiness called Ginnungagap. To the north lay Niflheim, a realm of ice, mist, and freezing rivers. To the south burned Muspelheim, a land of fire and unbearable heat. Between them the void waited.
Where the ice of Niflheim met the sparks of Muspelheim, the rime began to thaw. From the melting drops arose Ymir, the first of the giants, and beside him the great cow Audhumla, whose milk fed him. As Ymir slept, more giants were born from his sweat, and the frost peoples multiplied.
Audhumla nourished herself by licking the salty ice, and as she licked she uncovered a man frozen within it. This was Búri, ancestor of the gods, and with his line the shaping of the world would begin.
Key Stages of Creation
Fire, Ice, and the Void
Ginnungagap yawns between icy Niflheim and fiery Muspelheim. Where cold and heat meet, the ice melts and life begins to stir in the drops.
Ymir and Audhumla
The first giant Ymir emerges from the thaw, nourished by the cow Audhumla. From his sleeping body spring more giants, the ancestors of the frost peoples.
The First Gods
Audhumla licks Búri free from the ice. His son Borr weds the giantess Bestla, and their three sons are Odin, Vili, and Vé, the first of the Æsir.
The Slaying of Ymir
Odin and his brothers slay Ymir. His blood floods the void and drowns the frost giants, all but Bergelmir and his wife, who escape to father a new race of giants.
The World from a Body
From Ymir the brothers shape the world: his flesh becomes the earth, his blood the seas, his bones the mountains, his skull the dome of the sky, and his brains the drifting clouds.
Ask and Embla, the First Humans
Walking along the new shore, the three brothers found two logs, or in some tellings two trees, an ash and an elm. From them they fashioned the first people. Odin gave them breath and life, the second brother gave them wit and movement, and the third gave them faces, speech, hearing, and sight. The man was named Ask and the woman Embla, and from them all humankind is descended. To the people the gods gave Midgard, a walled home in the middle of the world, ringed by the sea where Ymir's eyebrows formed its boundary.
Sources and Related Tales
The creation is told most fully in Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda and echoed in the Poetic Edda poems Völuspá and Vafþrúðnismál, where giants and gods recount the shaping of the cosmos.
Niflheim
The primordial realm of ice and mist that helped give rise to the first life.
Muspelheim
The land of fire whose sparks melted the ancient ice of the void.
Midgard
The middle world made for Ask and Embla and all their descendants.
Audhumla
The primeval cow whose milk fed Ymir and whose licking freed the first god.
Quick Facts
The Primal Beings
Ymir
The first giant, from whose slain body the whole world is made.
Audhumla
The primeval cow who nourished Ymir and uncovered Búri from the ice.
Odin, Vili & Vé
The three brother-gods who slay Ymir and build the world and its people.
The World from Ymir
Flesh: the earth
Blood: the seas and lakes
Bones: the mountains
Skull: the vault of the sky
Brains: the clouds
Themes & Symbolism
Order from Chaos: The gods bring a structured world out of a formless void of fire and ice.
Sacrifice and Making: Creation requires the death of Ymir, whose body becomes the very ground beneath us.
Kinship of Gods and Giants: The gods descend from giants, binding the two peoples together from the very first days.