Peri Miles - Norse Mythology: A Guide to Norse Mythology and Its Everlasting Effects on Culture

Nearly every culture, every religion has a creation story. Some creation myths are similar and rather simple. For example, Catholics believe the earth was made in a few days, with God creating Adam and Eve. Norse mythology has one of the most in depth and entertaining accounts of creationism. The creation, according to Norse mythology, also contains several subtle meanings that make the story more colorful.

Ginnungagap existed as an abyss, well before any soil, green plants, or sky was formed. It was a place of chaos, which contained both darkness and silence. It existed between Niflheim (home of elemental ice) and Muspelheim (home of elemental fire).

Muspelheim flames and Niflheim frost moved towards each other, eventually meeting in Ginnungagap. Chaos reigned when the two met. One might think that Ginnungagap swallowed the two whole extinguishing the flames and melting the ice, but this is not the tale. Instead, the fire melted the ice, and formed Ymir.

Inside chaos, a black entity with no life, there formed the beginnings of life. Niflheim and Muspelheim did not disappear, but remained inside of Ginnungagap, what you can think of as the outer shell of the world. For some this would be considered the universe, a place so vast it is capable of holding numerous planets or worlds. The Norse certainly believe that Ginnungagap contains Nine Realms, along with a sun and moon.

Ymir, was not a planet or earth, but the first godlike giant, a hermaphrodite that could reproduce asexually. In this tale of creation, it was not a god who suddenly said oh, there needs to be people. It was a god that formed from the nothingness, capable of producing offspring because he was able to fill the role of both male and female.

Consider for a moment how much sense this makes. Does it make sense that a god existed first and simply called upon a magic power to create or does it make sense that from nothing game a creature capable of reproducing like some amphibians. Frogs, slugs, worms, even a shark species are capable of reproducing because both female and male organs exist.

Although logical, not all aspects of the creation tale continue to be as sound, when comparing science, not that it is important for science to agree on all aspects. It is just nice to be able to mix the two and find that in some ways Norse mythologys creation theory is not only entertaining, but believable to an extent.

The tale continues with more giants being born, although some of the sagas tell of these giants coming from Ymirs sweat versus being birthed in a more traditional manner.

Ymir needed to survive. Any living being must find nutrition in some form. To help Ymir survive, the frost created Audhumbla. Audhumbla was a cow, able to provide milk for Ymir to live. With one being comes the need for another, and since the cow was there to help Ymir, the cow could not very well eat him in return. Given that cows are vegetarians, it made more sense for the ice to continue melting, thus providing Audhumbla with salt-licks.

You might wonder why the ice was full of salt, but then again, if two entities collide and a number of minerals might form, such as salt. Audhumbla continued to lick the salty ice and soon uncovered Buri.

Buri is a god that is often overshadowed by his son Odin. You see, Buri was the first of the gods to establish the Aesir tribe. Another generation was born from Buri when he created a son called Bor. Bor married Bestla, the daughter of another god, Bolthorn. Bestla was a giant. Her coupling with Bor produced the greatest god of Asgard, Odin. The union also made Odin a half-giant, half-god.

Odin became the chief of the Aesir tribe. Who knows what became of his parents or grandfather Buri because they are only a means to creating Odin and his two brothers, Ve and Vili. It was Odin and his brothers that created the world within Ginnungagap.

Killing to Create a Three Level World

The three brothers killed Ymir. You might consider it outrageous that Odin and his brothers would dare to kill Ymir, the god-giant who began every being thus far. One could even say, they killed their ancestor in order to create the world.

The brothers used the corpse of Ymir to make the world. From Ymirs blood came the oceans, his skin and muscles became the soil, and his brains became the clouds. His hair provided vegetation, while the sky formed from his skull. To hold the sky in place it was necessary to use four dwarves. They corresponded to the four cardinal points, east, west, south and north.

What you might consider as just forming earth is not accurate. In fact, there are nine realms or worlds that actually formed within Ginnungagap, one of them was Midgard. However, the sky was not exclusive to just the earth, it was the sky for all of Ginnungagap, as the oceans, soil, clouds, and vegetation were all a part of Ginnungagap to encompass all nine realms.

The gods decided to form the first humans, a man and woman, to live on the earth. They were called Embla and Ask. To create their beings, the gods used two tree trunks. It is in this part of the tale that Yggdrasil becomes an important word. It is like the tree of life, one that can reach rivers to bring forth water, yet it can also be considered the tree that provided Ask and Embla.

To protect the humans from the giants, they built Midgard, with a fence around the home. A fence made of ocean, impassable unless using the Bifrost.

Another man born in Midgard became Mundilfari and he had two children called Mani and Sol. Both of these children were bright and beautiful. The arrogance of this man; however, angered the gods, so they took both children and turned them into the sun and moon.

Mani also took two children from Midgard to help drive his chariot as he flew in the sky. These two children were Bil and Yuki. Along with these two, came Jotuns daughter Nat. Jotun was a giant. Nat had a son, she named Dag. Nat stands for Night and Dag means Day. They are also in the sky with chariots, which are pulled by horses. Jotun had two other children, one was Hati and the other was Skoll. Hati will bite the moon each month, trying to swallow it, but the moon is always able to get away to grow whole again. It is the creation tale of how the sun and moon continually provide day and night, as well as why the moon will be full and yet nearly disappear, all within a month.