Bestla- Norse GiantGiant

Mother of the Gods

Before there were gods, there was ice and fire and the body of Ymir filling the void between them. The cow Auðumbla licked a shape from the salt-crusted ice, and that shape was Búri, the first of the divine line. Búri's son Borr married Bestla, daughter of the giant Bölþorn. In Gylfaginning, Snorri names the three sons she bore him: Odin, Vili, and Vé.

Those three brothers killed Ymir. They dragged his body into the void and made the world from it: his blood became the seas, his skull the sky held up by four dwarfs at its corners. Every realm exists because a giantess bore sons to a god's son, and those sons tore apart the first giant to build what came after. Odin, who would rule the Æsir, was half-jötunn through his mother.

Bölþorn's Gift

In Hávamál, Odin speaks of learning nine mighty songs from the son of Bölþorn, his maternal uncle. Bestla's unnamed brother taught the god who hung nine nights on Yggdrasil, pierced by his own spear, the words that gave him power over runes and magic. The knowledge came not from Borr's divine line but from Bestla's giant kin.