Ymir
The primordial giant of the Norse creation, alive when there was neither sea nor earth "But a yawning gap"; from his flesh, bones, skull and blood the gods made earth, mountains, sky and sea; "from Ymir sprang the giants all". Vafthruthnismol calls the first giant Aurgelmir and tells how he bred without a wife.
Why this wins its question: Gives the creation from Ymir in the poems' own stanzas and marks the slaying as a Prose Edda element, so the two accounts are not blended.
Key takeaways
- The body-into-world formula is in two poems almost word for word (Vafthruthnismol 21; Grimnismol 40–41).
- The killing of Ymir by Odin, Vili and Ve is not in the Poetic Edda; the poems give a making, not a murder.
- Aurgelmir's self-generation and Bergelmir's boat are Vafthruthnir's contribution, with no counterpart in Voluspo.
Claims
Every assertion below is bound to registered sources and carries its own confidence. Weight them; do not treat the page as uniformly authoritative.
Before the world there was Ymir and a gap: "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" (Voluspo 3); then "Bur's sons lifted the level land, / Mithgarth the mighty there they made" (Voluspo 4).
The world is Ymir's body: "Out of Ymir's flesh was fashioned the earth, / And the mountains were made of his bones; / The sky from the frost-cold giant's skull, / And the ocean out of his blood" (Vafthruthnismol 21). Grimnismol repeats it and adds hair for trees, eyebrows for Mithgarth and brain for the clouds (Grimnismol 40–41).
Neither poem says who killed Ymir: Vafthruthnismol and Grimnismol state the making of the world from him, and Voluspo 4 names "Bur's sons" as the earth-lifters, without a killing. The slaying by Odin and his brothers is the Prose Edda's account.
Vafthruthnir's version of the first giant: he came from venom dropping "Down from Elivagar" and "waxed till a giant it was"; under the arms of "the giant of ice" grew a boy and a girl together, and "foot with foot" he begot a six-headed son; he is called Aurgelmir, grandfather of Bergelmir (Vafthruthnismol 29–33). Ymir is named in the question (Vafthruthnismol 28), so the poem treats the two names as one giant.
The giants descend from him: "from Ymir sprang the giants all" (Hyndluljoth 35); the oldest thing the giant remembers is Bergelmir "In a boat of old ... borne" (Vafthruthnismol 35) — the passage read as the Norse flood.
Questions answered
- How was the world made from Ymir?
- The world is Ymir's body: "Out of Ymir's flesh was fashioned the earth, / And the mountains were made of his bones; / The sky from the frost-cold giant's skull, / And the ocean out of his blood" (Vafthruthnismol 21). Grimnismol repeats it and adds hair for trees, eyebrows for Mithgarth and brain for the clouds (Grimnismol 40–41). source
- Who killed Ymir?
- Neither poem says who killed Ymir: Vafthruthnismol and Grimnismol state the making of the world from him, and Voluspo 4 names "Bur's sons" as the earth-lifters, without a killing. The slaying by Odin and his brothers is the Prose Edda's account. source
- Is Ymir the same as Aurgelmir?
- Vafthruthnir's version of the first giant: he came from venom dropping "Down from Elivagar" and "waxed till a giant it was"; under the arms of "the giant of ice" grew a boy and a girl together, and "foot with foot" he begot a six-headed son; he is called Aurgelmir, grandfather of Bergelmir (Vafthruthnismol 29–33). Ymir is named in the question (Vafthruthnismol 28), so the poem treats the two names as one giant. source
- What is the Norse flood?
- The giants descend from him: "from Ymir sprang the giants all" (Hyndluljoth 35); the oldest thing the giant remembers is Bergelmir "In a boat of old ... borne" (Vafthruthnismol 35) — the passage read as the Norse flood. source