Ginnungagap- Norse LocationLocation · Realm"Yawning Void"

Before Everything

Before the world existed, before the gods were born, there was Ginnungagap, the yawning void at the center of all things. To the north lay Niflheim, the primordial world of ice and mist where the spring Hvergelmir churned in eternal cold. To the south burned Muspelheim, the world of fire, which had existed as long as Niflheim and would burn as long. Between them stretched nothing. At the gap's center the air was mild and still, though frost encrusted its northern edges and heat shimmered along the south.

Fire and Ice

From Niflheim flowed the Élívágar, eleven rivers of venom and frost that poured from Hvergelmir into the emptiness. Slíðr ran with swords and knives in its current. As the rivers entered Ginnungagap, their poison hardened into layer upon layer of rime, filling the void's northern reaches with ice.

From the south, Muspelheim breathed heat and light. Sparks and glowing embers drifted northward. Where the frozen rime of the Élívágar met the fire world's heat, the ice began to thaw. Drops of moisture formed where flame touched frost, and within the meltwater something stirred. Life was forming from the union of venom and warmth.

Ymir and Auðumbla

From the melting rime the first being took shape: Ymir, the primordial giant, called Aurgelmir in the wisdom poetry of Vafþrúðnismál. He was enormous and strangely generative. As he slept, a male and female grew from beneath his arms, and one leg produced a son with the other. These were the first jötnar, the race of giants who would fill the cosmos long before any god existed.

Alongside Ymir, the cosmic cow Auðumbla emerged from the ice. She nourished the giant with four rivers of milk, while she herself licked the salty rime. On the first day, hair appeared in the ice. On the second, a head. On the third, a full form: Búri, the first of the gods. Búri's son Borr married the giantess Bestla, and from that union came Odin, Vili, and Vé.

The World from the Body

The three brothers slew Ymir. In his death-blood a flood drowned nearly all the frost giants. Only Bergelmir and his wife survived by climbing onto a lúðr, a hollowed trunk, as the gore washed over everything.

From the corpse the brothers built the world. His flesh became the earth, his blood the seas, his bones the mountains. They raised his skull to form the dome of the sky and set four dwarves at the corners to hold it aloft. From Muspelheim they captured sparks to make the stars. Maggots crawling in Ymir's flesh were given wit and shape and became the dwarves. From two logs washed up on the shore, an ash and an elm, they made Ask and Embla, the first humans. Odin gave them breath. Vili gave them wit. Vé gave them form and speech.

The land fashioned from the giant's body became Midgard, encircled by an ocean of his blood and shielded by a wall of his eyebrows. The void that had contained nothing now held nine worlds arranged along the World Tree. Ginnungagap had become the cosmos.