Thor stands as the foremost defender of Midgard, journeying again and again to slay the giants who threaten the realm of humanity and holding the line until Ragnarök claims him.
The Æsir govern and protect Midgard, the realm of humans they created from Ymir's body, with Thor serving as its foremost defender against the giants.
After slaying the primordial giant Ymir, Odin and his brothers Vili and Vé fashioned Midgard from his flesh, raised mountains from his bones, and set his skull as the vault of the sky.
Yggdrasil, the great ash tree, holds the Nine Worlds within its branches and among its three roots, each realm sheltered in the cosmic structure that binds all of existence together from the fires below to the halls above.
Bifröst, the burning rainbow bridge, spans the gulf between Midgard and Asgard, the only path by which the gods ride down to their council at the Well of Urðr each day.
In the Rígsþula, Heimdall travels Midgard under the name Rígr, fathering the ancestors of the three social classes: Þræll (thralls), Karl (freemen), and Jarl (nobles), making him the mythological father of human society.
Jörmungandr encircles Midgard in the depths of the ocean, his body forming the boundary between the mortal world and the chaos beyond. When he releases his tail at Ragnarök, that boundary dissolves.
Jötunheim lies beyond the walls the gods built from Ymir's eyebrows to shield Midgard. The frost giants constantly threaten the mortal world from across that barrier, held back by Thor's hammer.
When Odin fled Hnitbjörg in eagle form, a portion of the Mead of Poetry spilled from his beak and fell to Midgard — the poetaster's share, granting mortals only a feeble echo of true poetic inspiration.
The Völuspá prophesies that Midgard will be destroyed at Ragnarök — the earth sinks into the sea, fires consume the world — before rising again green and renewed.
At Ragnarök, Surtr and the sons of Múspell march from Muspelheim and set Midgard ablaze, consuming the human world in fire as prophesied in the Völuspá.
Midgard was fashioned from the body of the slain primordial giant Ymir — his flesh became the land, his blood the seas, his bones the mountains, and his eyebrows the walls enclosing the realm, as told in Gylfaginning.
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