YMIR – THE GIANT OF NORSE MYTHOLOGY: the creator of Earth

He was a prehistoric giant in the Norse mythology of Scandinavia and was also known as Aurgelmir – the gravel yeller

He was first attested in the poetic edda in the 13th century:

“Of old was the age when Ymir lived;

Sea nor cool waves nor sand there were;

Earth had not been, nor heaven above,

But a yawning gap, and grass nowhere.”

He was the first living being in the Norse mythology and from his body the entire world was created.

According to the legend Ymir was born from the eyes of the far north when the flames of the fire kingdom ‘Muspelheim’ melted the ice in the frozen kingdom of Nifflheim.

It was said that at the same time the great cosmic cow ‘Audumla’ emerged from the ice and started to lick the melting waters from the giant, and from this another giant emerged called buri. Ymir then drank the milk of this cow and grew in strenght and produced the first frost giants.

Eventually one of Buri’s sons called Bor took Ymirs daughter and produced the gods – Odin, Vili and Vé, these three gods were unhappy and thus started war with the giants – they killed ymir and his blood flows which became the rivers and the seas.

These gods then made the earth with ymirs flesh using his bones for mountains, teeth for the rocks, the heaven from his skull and the trees and vegetation from his hair.

As one of the poems in the Poetic Edda, Grímnismál or “Song of the Hooded One,” words it:

From Ymir’s flesh the earth was created,
And from his sweat [or, in some versions, blood] the sea,
Mountains from bone,
Trees from hair,
And from his skull the sky.

And from his eyebrows the blithe gods made

Midgaurd, home of the sons of men
And from his brains
They sculpted the grim clouds.

The gods then created their new home called Asgard and Midgaurd for the mortals.

Although ymir is not as popular as the other deities he is represnted here and there in popular culture such as the hit anime show “attack on titans” as one of the characters called ‘ymir’.

Read the prevision post on the HABSBURG JAW- an incest muddle

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