Vili- Norse GodDeity
Description
He helped slay the primordial giant Ymir and shape the cosmos from the corpse, then breathed wit and feeling into the first humans. After that, he vanished from the myths, leaving almost no trace beyond the act of creation itself.
Mythology & Lore
The Slaying of Ymir
Vili was born to Borr and the giantess Bestla, brother to Odin and Vé. The Gylfaginning gives the three of them their first act together: they killed Ymir, the primordial giant whose body had grown from the collision of fire and ice in Ginnungagap. From the corpse they built the world. Ymir's flesh became the earth, his skull the sky. The blood alone drowned every frost giant alive except Bergelmir and his wife, who escaped on a hollowed trunk.
Ask and Embla
In the Gylfaginning, the three brothers found two logs washed up on the shore and made them into the first humans, Ask and Embla. Odin gave breath and life. Vili gave wit and feeling: vit ok hrøringar, the capacity for thought and emotion. Vé gave speech, hearing, and sight. Without Vili's gift, the first humans would have been alive but empty, breathing bodies with nothing stirring behind the eyes.
The Völuspá tells the same scene differently. There the three creators are Odin, Hœnir, and Lóðurr. Which of these names, if either, maps onto Vili, no surviving source settles.
Loki's Taunt
Vili surfaces once more, in the Lokasenna. Loki turns to Frigg and tells her she took both Vili and Vé into her bed while Odin was away. Frigg does not deny it. She tells Loki that if she had a son like Baldr still living, he would not walk out of Ægir's hall. The accusation slides past, unresolved. It is the last time any source mentions Vili by name.