Cosmogony (Scandinavian mythology)

Original nothing with the first giants and the first gods

Such is the beginning of times which are presented to us in the Völuspá. Original nothing, Ginnungagap ( open vacuum in Old norrois) is bordered in north by Niflheim, world of the cold and the ice, the fog and the darkness, with the south by Muspellheim, field of fire and the flames, heat and the light.

In the center of Niflheim is a source, Hvergelmir, from where eleven icy rivers spout out, the Élivagar. Far from their source, these rivers froze, and of the white frost appeared. Gradually, it gained Ginnungagap. At the same time, a breath of hot air went up of Muspellheim. This heat dissolved the white frost, and of the drops were formed, giving rise to the first being, a giant of the name of Ymir.

Meeting of heat and cold were born also the cow Audhumla. Of its worse four milk rivers spouted out, which nourished Ymir.

But Audhumla does not play only the part of “nurse” of Ymir. Indeed, to nourish itself, it started to lick the blocks of white frost. By doing this, it revealed a hair the first day, a head the second day, and, at the third day, it was an entire being, Buri which was released from the ices.

As for Ymir, it generates during its sleep two “children”. In same time, one of its feet generated with the other foot a son, Thrudgelmir, a giant with six heads.

Buri had, under conditions which one is unaware of, a son named Burr or Borr (what means “wire quite simply”). The giants also reproduced. In particular, one of them, Bolthorn, had a girl bearing the name of Bestla.

Burr and Bestla generated the first gods: Odin, Vili and Vé.

The murder of Ymir and the creation of the universe

Arrived then the day when Odin, Vé and Vili killed Ymir. All the giants drowned in his blood, except Bergelmir, wire of Thrudgelmir. He indeed managed to flee with his wife in a hollow tree trunk. It is thanks to him that the race of the giants of the white frost remained. This topic of the murder of the ancestors are found in many mythologies, in particular the Greek Mythologie (Titanomachie).

Once they had killed Ymir, the gods transported his body in the center of Ginnungagap. They created the ground with its flesh, the seas and the lakes with its blood, the mountains with its bones. Of its cranium it made the vault of heaven, and of its brain the clouds. Its teeth and the glares of its bones became the stones and the rocks. With the eyebrows of Ymir a wall intended was built to protect itself from the giants. As for stars, the gods created them starting from sparks and of the sparks come from Muspellheim. The stars were placed on their orbit, and it is as from this time that one distinguished the day from the night.

During the dismemberment of Ymir, the gods discovered in his flesh of the beings similar to worms. They decided to endow them with intelligence and to give them human form, thus giving rise to the dwarf S. Four of them, placed at the four corners of the vault of heaven, was used to support the sky: Nordri, Sudri, Austri and Westri, which gave their names to the cardinal points.

See too

Random links: