In
the beginning, Muspelheim is in the South.
Niflheim
is in the North. In between is the great spring Hvergelmir.
Hvergelmir is located in Ginungagap, a
chasm between Muspelheim and Niflheim. Ginungagap means "gap of gaps." Niflheim
is nothing but ice. Muspelheim is nothing but fire. Hvergelmir is a huge boiling
spring of water slowly melting the ice of Niflheim. Surtri is a proto-god
in Muspelheim. Surtri is the name of
fire deified. Niflheim is the largest area (Archetype: Most creation stories
begin with a body of chaotic water -- in Scandinavia the water is frozen.).
The action of the ice melting creates a giant called Ymir.
[Note: Male giants are pretty much inherently evil in Scandinavian myth.]
Ymir emerges from the ice and is hungry. A second creature also emerges: Audhumla,
a cow, which provides Ymir with milk. Audhumla licks the ice for salt, and
as she licks she revelas more beings. From Ymir come more creatures as well.
From his legs (loins), a race of giants is created. Man and woman are created
from his armpit. Audhumla uncovers the head of a proto-god (basically a god
who comes before the ones we want to talk about -- a god who precedes the
pantheon of gods in the mythology). He is called Buri
which means "He Who Is Born." He comes out of the ice and takes a giantess
for a wife. Audhumla then finds Borr (whose
name means the same thing as Buri). He, too, takes a giantess for a wife.
They give birth to some gods -- the first three.
Borr
fathers Odin, Vili,
and Ve. Odin goes on to become king of
the gods. Odin, Vili, and Ve recognize that Ymir is evil and begin a war against
him and the giants. They kill Ymir, and his blood pours out and floods everything.
It drowns the humand and all of the giants except one couple: Bergelmir
and his wife escape in a boat. Later, the races of giants give the gods much
trouble because of this escape. When the blood subsides, Odin, Vili, and Ve
roll the body into Ginungagap and cut it up and create the universe. (This
adheres to the archetype: Gods create the universe from the dead body of some
huge being. The archetype appears in Babylonian myth, Chinese, African, etc.)
His skull becomes the sky. His bones become rocks. His flesh becomes the earth.
His blood becomes the oceans, lakes, etc. His hair becomes vegetation. Odin,
Vili, and Ve find maggots in the corpse. From the maggots they create elves
and dwarves. There are light elves and
dark elves. Dark elves are sometimes seen as being the same as dwarves. The
skull of Ymir has to be held up by the sky. They use four dark elves for this
job: Nordri, Sudri,
Austri, and Oestri
-- the four directions. Odin, Vili, and Ve take a walk along the lakeshore.
At some point, they stop, and from two trees, they create man and woman to
tend the earth: Ask (the ash tree = male)
and Embla (the elm or elder tree = woman).
Odin
(Wodin in German) - Wednesday
Thor, the
Storm God - Thursday
Tyr, the
God of Battle (Tiu in German) - Tuesday
Frey, the
Sun God, & Freya,
Frey's twin sister - Friday
Saturi, the
Great Trickster (Loki)
- Saturday