Ymir- Norse PrimordialPrimordial"First Giant"

The Void and the First Being

Before Ymir, there was Ginnungagap, the yawning void. To the north lay Niflheim and its frozen rivers. To the south lay Muspelheim and its fire. Where the ice met the heat, the rime melted. From the dripping moisture, the first living thing took shape: Ymir, the primordial giant. The giants remember him by another name. In Vafþrúðnismál, when Odin questions the giant Vafþrúðnir, the old jötunn calls him Aurgelmir.

Auðumbla

From the same melting ice emerged Auðumbla, the primordial cow. Four rivers of milk flowed from her udder and nourished Ymir. Auðumbla herself fed by licking the salty ice blocks.

As she licked, a being emerged. On the first day, a man's hair appeared. On the second, his head. On the third, his whole body was free. This was Búri, the first ancestor of the gods.

The Birth of Giants

While Auðumbla licked Búri from the ice, Ymir propagated his own kind. He reproduced in his sleep: from the sweat of his armpits grew a male and female, and from his legs came another. These were the first jötnar.

In Vafþrúðnismál, the giant confirms: "from Élivágar spurted venom-drops, and these grew until they became a giant; from there our kin all come."

The Slaying

Búri's son Borr married Bestla, daughter of the giant Bölþorn. They had three sons: Odin, Vili, and Vé. The first gods.

The three brothers killed Ymir. His blood flooded the void and drowned nearly all the frost giants. Only Bergelmir and his wife escaped, carried over the blood in a lúðr, a hollowed trunk or coffin. From them all later giants descend.

The World from His Body

From Ymir's corpse the gods built everything. His flesh became the earth, his skull the dome of the sky. Four dwarves hold the skull aloft at the four corners: Norðri, Suðri, Austri, and Vestri. From his eyebrows they raised the walls of Midgard.

Sparks from Muspelheim were set in the skull-dome as stars. Grímnismál preserves the catalogue in Odin's own voice. To walk the earth is to walk on Ymir's skin. To look up at the sky is to look into the hollow of his skull.