Buri- Norse PrimordialPrimordial"The First God"
Also known as: Búri
Titles & Epithets
Domains
Description
Licked free from primordial salt-ice by the cow Auðumbla over three days — first his hair, then his head, then his whole body — Búri emerged as the first being of the divine line, beautiful, tall, and mighty.
Mythology & Lore
Emergence from the Ice
In the Gylfaginning, Búri is freed from salty ice in Ginnungagap by the primordial cow Auðumbla. On the first day of licking, a man's hair appeared. On the second, his head. By the end of the third day, the whole being had emerged: beautiful, tall, and mighty.
Auðumbla had already been feeding Ymir, the first giant, from her four rivers of milk. While she licked Búri free, frost giants sprang from Ymir's sweat. Two lineages arose in the void at the same time, from the same cow.
The First Line
Búri fathered a son called Borr. The sources do not name Borr's mother. Borr married the giantess Bestla, daughter of the giant Bölþorn, and their sons were Odin, Vili, and Vé. Those three killed Ymir and built the world from his body.
Búri has no further mythology. He was licked from the ice, he fathered a son, and the line he began remade the cosmos.