Sons of Múspell- Norse RaceRace

The Fires Before the World

Múspellheim is one of the two primordial extremes that precede all creation. In Gylfaginning 4, Snorri describes the southern end of the cosmic void Ginnungagap as a region of heat, light, and unendurable brightness, where nothing can survive that is not native to it. From this realm, sparks and molten particles drifted northward into the void, meeting the rime and frost flowing south from Niflheim. The collision of fire and ice within Ginnungagap produced the first thaw, the drops quickening into the proto-giant Ymir, from whose body the world would later be shaped.

The Sons of Múspell belong to this oldest stratum of Norse cosmogony. Their realm existed before the gods, before the earth, before the sky. Snorri records in Gylfaginning 8 that when the sons of Borr fashioned the heavens, they took sparks and glowing embers flung from Múspellheim and set them in the sky above and below Ginnungagap, giving fixed positions to some as stars and appointing courses for others. The sun, moon, and stars carry the fire of Múspellheim within them.

The March at Ragnarök

Völuspá 51 announces their arrival with stark economy: Surtr fares from the south with the scourge of branches, the sun glinting off the sword of the slaughter-gods, and Múspells lýðir ride in his wake.

Snorri's Gylfaginning 51 expands the scene in prose. The Sons of Múspell ride forth in a host so vast and blazing that when they cross Bifröst, the rainbow bridge breaks apart beneath them. They advance to the plain of Vígríðr, which stretches a hundred leagues in every direction, where they array themselves for the last battle alongside the wolf Fenrir and the Midgard Serpent. After the fighting, Surtr casts fire across the world. The flames consume earth, sea, and sky. Everything the gods built from Múspellheim's sparks burns back into Múspellheim's fire.