Ymir

The First Being

According to Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda, before there was anything else, there was Ginnungagap, a yawning void between the fire of Muspelheim and the ice of Niflheim. Where the rime and the sparks met and thawed, life quickened, and the first being, the giant Ymir, took shape from the dripping ice.

Ancestor of the Giants

Ymir was nourished by the milk of the primordial cow Audhumla, who in turn licked the salty ice blocks of Ginnungagap to reveal Buri, ancestor of the gods. While Ymir slept, he sweated, and from under his arm grew a male and a female; one of his legs begot a son with the other. In this way Ymir became the forefather of the race of frost giants (hrimthursar) without any consort.

Slain by the Gods

Buri's grandsons (Odin, Vili, and Ve) eventually turned against Ymir and killed him. So much blood poured from his wounds that it drowned nearly the entire race of frost giants, except for the giant Bergelmir, who escaped on a boat with his household and became ancestor to the giants who survived.

The Body Becomes the World

Odin and his brothers carried Ymir's corpse to the center of Ginnungagap and used it to fashion the physical world. His flesh became the earth, his blood the sea and lakes, his bones the mountains, his teeth and broken bone fragments the rocks and stones, his skull the dome of the sky (held up at its four corners by four dwarfs), and his brains the clouds. Maggots that arose in his flesh became the dwarfs. This creation-from-a-slain-primordial-body motif is central to Norse cosmogony and is recounted in both the Prose Edda and, more tersely, in the Eddic poems Grimnismal and Vafthrudnismal.