Ymir

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In Norse mythology, Ymir (cf. ὑπέρ), also named Aurgelmir (Old Norse gravel-yeller) among the giants themselves, was the founder of the race of frost giants and was later killed by the Borrs.
==Creation myth==
Snorri Sturluson combined several sources, along with some of his own conclusions, to explain Ymir's role in the Norse creation myth. The main sources available are the great Eddic poem Völuspá, the question and answer poem Grímnismál, and the question and answer poem Vafþrúðnismál. The Völuspá opens with the Norse account of the creation of the present universe:
:Old tales I remember
:of men long ago.
:I remember yet
:the giants of lore [...]
:Of old was the age
:when Ymir lived;
:No Sea nor cool waves
:nor sand there were;
:Earth had not been
:nor heaven above,
:Only a yawning gap
:and grass nowhere.
According to these poems, in the beginning there was nothing except for the ice of Niflheim, to the north, and the fire of Muspelheim, to the south. Between them was a yawning gap called Ginnungagap and there a few pieces of ice melted by a few sparks of fire created a moisture called eitr, the liquid substance of life. Ymir was the first to be conceived as drops of eitr joined together and formed a giant of rime frost (a hrimthurs) and sparks from Muspelheim brought him to life. While Ymir slept, the sweat under his arms became two more giants, one male and one female, and one of his legs mated with the other to create a third, a son Þrúðgelmir. These were the forebearers of the family of frost giants or jutuns. They were nursed by the cow giant Auðumbla who, like Ymir, was created from the melting ice in Ginnungagap. Auðumbla herself fed on a block of salty ice, and her licking sculpted it into the shape of a man who became Búri, the ancestor of the gods (Æsir) and the grandfather of Odin.
Buri fathered Borr, and Borr fathered three sons, the gods Vili and Vé, and Odin. These brothers killed the giant Ymir, and unleashed a vast flood from Ymir's blood killing all the frost giants but the son of Þrúðgelmir, Bergelmir, and Bergelmir's wife who all took safety in a hollow tree. Odin and his brothers used Ymir's lifeless body to create the universe. They carried it to the center of Ginnungagap and there they ground his flesh into dirt. The maggots that appeared in his flesh became the dwarves that live under the earth. His bones became the mountains, his teeth rocks and pebbles. Odin strewed Ymir's brains into the sky to create the clouds, and took sparks and embers from Muspelheim for the sun, moon and stars. The gods placed four dwarves—Norðri (North), Suðr (South), Austri (East), and Vestri (West—to hold up Ymir's skull and create the heavens.
The three gods created the first human beings, Ask from a fallen ash tree and Embla from a fallen elm. Odin breathed life into them; Villi granted them intelligence; and Ve gave them vision and hearing. They dwelled in the realm the gods created from Ymir's eyebrows, Midgard, where the human race could live safe from Bergelmir and his descendants. The gods regulated the passage of the days and nights, as well as the seasons. Sól is the personified sun, a daughter of Mundilfari, and wife of Glen. Every day, she rides through the sky on her chariot, pulled by two horses named Árvakr and Alsviðr. Sól is chased during the day by Sköll, a wolf that wants to devour her. It is foretold that Sköll will eventually catch Sol and eat her during Ragnarök; however, she will first give birth to a daughter as fair as she. Sól's brother Máni, the personified moon, is chased by Hati Hróðvitnisson, another wolf. The earth is protected from the full heat of the sun by the shield Svalinn, which is placed before Sól.
Two other names associated with Ymir are Brimir and Bláinn according to Völuspá, stanza 9, where the gods discuss forming the race of dwarfs from the "blood of Brimir and the limbs of Bláinn". Later in stanza 37, Brimir is mentioned as having a beer hall in Ókólnir. In Gylfaginning "Brimir" is the name of the hall itself, destined to survive the destruction of Ragnarök and providing an "abundance of good drink" for the souls of the virtuous.
==Etymology==
Analysis of different Indo-European tales indicate the Proto-Indo-Europeans believed there were two progenitors of mankind: *Manu- ("Man"; Indic Manu; Germanic Mannus) and *Yemo- ("Twin"), his twin brother. The latter, like Ymir, was sacrificed and carved up by his brother to produce mankind.In Search of the Indo-Europeans, Mallory, 1987, p. 140.
Traces of this dualistic structure of (also) the Proto-Indo-European creation myth can be found in parallel mythological entities with the same etymology, like the Indic death deity Yama and Avestan Yima, progenitors of mankind; of Remus (according to Jaan Puhvel), the brother of Romulus in the story of the founding of Rome, and Ymir. The underlying Proto-Indo-European form is *yemo ("twin"). The corresponding Proto-Germanic form was either *umijaz or, in better accordance with this theory, *jumijaz (W.Meid).
Yama shares with Ymir the characteristics of being primordial and mortal, but otherwise developed towards a very different character, the first of mortal men and kings who after death becomes ruler of the realm of the dead.
Here it is also worth noting that amongst the actual speakers of Old Icelandic, as opposed to reconstructed ProtoIndo-European,the name Ymir meant, not "twin", but "noisemaker,roarer, bellower".
==Attestations==
===Poetic Edda===
Ymir is mentioned in four poems in the Poetic Edda; Völuspá, Vafþrúðnismál, Grímnismál, and Hyndluljóð. In Völuspá, in which an undead völva imparts knowledge in the god Odin, references are twice made to Ymir. In the first instance, the third stanza of the poem, Ymir is mentioned by name:
;Benjamin Thorpe translation:
:There was in times of old, where Ymir dwelt,
:nor sand nor sea, nor gelid waves;
:earth existed not, nor heaven above,
:'twas a chaotic chasm, and grass nowhere.Thorpe (1866:3).
;Henry Adams Bellows translation:
:"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."Bellows (1923:4).
In the above translations the name of the location Ginnungagap is translated as "chaotic chasm" (Thorpe) and "yawning gap" (Bellows). Later in the poem, a few other references are apparently made to Ymir as Brimir and Bláinn (here anglicized as Blain):
;Benjamin Thorpe translation
:Then went all the powers to their judgement-seats,
:the all-holy gods, and thereon held council,
:who should of the dwarfs race create,
:from the sea-giant's blood and livid bones.Thorpe (1866:4).
;Henry Adams Bellows translation:
:"Then sought the gods their assembly-seats,:The holy ones, and council held,
:To find who should raise the race of dwarfs
:Out of Brimir's blood and the legs of Blain."Bellows (1923:6).
In this stanza Thorpe has treated Brimir (Old Norse "the bloody moisture") and Blain (Old Norse, disputed) as common nouns. Brimir and Blain are usually held to be proper names that refer to Ymir, as in Bellows's translation.
In the poem Vafþrúðnismál, the (disguised) god Odin engages the wise jötunn Vafþrúðnir in a game of wits. Odin asks Vafþrúðnir to tell him, if Vafþrúðnir's knowledge is sufficient, the answer to a variety of questions. In the first of which that refers to Ymir, Odin asks from where first came the Earth and the sky. The jötunn responds with a creation account involving Ymir:
;Benjamin Thorpe translation:
:From Ymir's flesh the earth was formed,
:and from his bones the hills,
:the heaven from the skull of that ice-cold giant,
:and from his blood the sea.Thorpe (1866:14).
;Henry Adams Bellows translation:
:"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."Bellows (1923:74).
As the verbal battle continues, a few more exchanges directly refer to or may elude to Ymir. Odin asks what ancient jötun is the eldest of "Ymir's kin", and Vafþrúðnir responds that long, long ago it was Bergelmir, who was Þrúðgelmir's son and Aurgelmir's grandson. In the next stanza Odin asks from where Aurgelmir came from so long ago, to which Vafþrúðnir responds that venom dropped from Élivágar, and that these drops grew until they became a jötunn, and from this being descends the jötnar. Finally, Odin asks how this being begat children, as he did not know the company of a female jötunn, to which Vafþrúðnir responds that from beneath the ancient jötunn's armpits together a girl and a boy grew, and his feet together produced a six-headed jötunn.Thorpe (1866:15—16), Bellows (1923:76—77), and Orchard (2011:44).
In the poem Grímnismál, the god Odin (disguised as Grímnir) imparts in the young Agnarr cosmological knowledge. In one stanza, Odin mentions Ymir as he recalls the fashioning of the world from his body:
;Benjamin Thorpe translation:
:Of Ymir's flesh was earth created,:of his blood the sea,
:of his bones the hills,
:of his hair trees and plants,
:of his skull the heaven;
:and of his brows the gentle powers
:formed Midgard for the sons of men;
:but of his brain
:the heavy clouds are all created.Thorpe (1866:24—25).
;Henry Adams Bellows translation:
:"Out of Ymir's flesh was fashioned the earth,
:And the ocean out of his blood;
:Of his bones the hills, of his hair the trees,
:Of his skull the heavens high."
:"Mithgarth the gods from his eyebrows made,
:And set for the sons of men;
:And out of his brain the baleful clouds
:They made to move on high."Bellows (1923:100—101).
In a stanza of Völuspá hin skamma (found in the poem Hyndluljóð), the Ymir receives one more mention. According to the stanza, völvas are descended from Viðòlfr, all seers from Vilmeiðr, all charm-workers from Svarthöfði, and all jötnar descend from Ymir.Bellows (1923:229) and Thorpe (1866:111).
===Prose Edda===
Ymir is mentioned in two books of the Prose Edda; Gylfaginning and Skáldskaparmál. Ymir is first mentioned in chapter 5 of the prior, in which High, Just-As-High, and Third tell Gangleri (the disguised mythical king Gylfi) about how all things came to be. The trio explain that the first world to exist was Muspell, a glowing, fiery southern region consisting of flames, uninhabitable by non-natives. After "many ages" Niflheimr was made, and within it lies a spring, Hvergelmir, from which flows twelve rivers.Faulkes (1995:9—10).
Gangleri asks the three what things were like before mankind. High continues that these icy rivers, which are called Élivágar, ran so far from their spring source that the poisonous matter that flows with them became hard "like the clinker that comes from a furnace"—it turned to ice. And so, when this ice came to a halt and stopped flowing, the vapor that rose up from the poison went in the same direction and froze to rime. This rime increased, layer upon layer, across Ginnungagap.Faulkes (1995:10).
Just-As-High adds that the northern part of Ginnungagap was heavy with ice and rime, and vapor and blowing came inward from this. Yet the southern part of Ginunngagap was clear on account of the sparks and molten flecks flying from Muspell. Third assesses that "just as from Niflheim there was coldness and all things grim, so what was facing close to Muspell was hot and bright, but Ginunngagap was as mild as a windless sky". Third adds that when the rime and hot air met, it thawed and dripped, and the liquid intensely dropped. This liquid fell into the shape of a man, and so he was named Ymir and known among the jötnar as Aurgelmir, all of which descend from him. In support of these two names, Third quotes a stanza each from Völuspá hin skamma and Vafþrúðnismál.
Gangleri asks how generations grew from Ymir, how other beings came into existence, and if Gangleri was considered a god. High says that Ymir was by no means considered a god, and says that "he was evil and all his descendants". High explains that Ymir is the ancestor of all jötnar (specifically hrimthursar), and that it is said that when Ymir slept, he sweated, and from his left arm and right arm grew a male and a female, and his left leg produced a song with his right leg, and from them came generations.Faulkes (1995:11).
Gangleri asks where Ymir lived and what sustained him. High explains that the drips next produced a cow named Auðumbla. From her teats flowed four rivers of milk, and from it fed Ymir. Gangleri asks what the cow fed from, and High responds that the cow licked salty rime-stones. The first day Auðumbla licked the rime stones it uncovered that evening the hair of a man. The second day it uncovered his head. The third day a man was uncovered from the ice. This man was named Búri, and was large, powerful, and beautiful to behold. Búri married a jötunn, Bestla, the daughter of Bölþorn. The two had three sons; Odin, Vili, and Vé. High adds that "Odin and his brothers must be the rulers of heaven and earth; it is our opinion that this must be what he is called. This is the name of one who is the greatest and most glorious that we know, and you would well to agree to call him that too".
High relates that Odin, Vili, and Vé killed Ymir, and his body produced so much blood from his wounds that within it drowned all the jötnar but two, Bergelmir, who, on a lúðr with his (unnamed) wife, survived and repopulated the jötnar.
Gangleri asks what, if High, Just-As-High, and Third believe the trio to be gods, what the three did then. High says that the trio took the body into the middle of Ginnungagap and from his flesh fashioned the Earth, from his blood the sea and lakes, from his bones rocks, scree and stones his teeth, molars, and bones. Just-As-High adds that from his gushing wounds they created the sea that surrounds the Earth. Third says that the trio took his skull and placed it above the Earth and from it made the sky. They placed the sky above the earth, and, to hold up the sky, they placed for dwarfs—Norðri, Suðri, Austri and Vestri—at its four corners. The trio took the molten particles and sparks that flew from Muspell and "they fixed all the lights, some in the sky, some moved in a wandering course beneath the sky, but they appointed them positions and ordained their courses". Third cites a stanza from Völuspá in support, stating that by ways of these sky lights days and years were reckoned and counted, and that the stanza reflects that the cosmological bodies did not know their places prior to the creation of earth.Faulkes (1998:12).
Gangleri comments that what he has just heard is remarkable, as the construction is both immense and made with great skill, and asks how the earth was arranged. High replies that the world is circular, and around it lies the depths of the sea. Along the shore the gods gave land to the jötnar. However, on the inner side on earth they made a fortification against the hostility of the jötnar out of Ymir's eyelashes. This fortification they called Midgard. Further, they took Ymir's brains and threw them skyward, and from them made clouds. Another two stanzas from Völuspá are cited in support.Faulkes (1998:12—13).
Later in Gylfaginning High explains the origin of the dwarfs. High says that after Asgard had been built, and the gods assembled on their thrones and held their things. There they "discussed where the dwarfs had been generated from in the soil and down in the earth like maggots in flesh. The dwarfs had taken shape first and acquired life in the flesh of Ymir and were then maggots, but by decision of the gods they became conscious with intelligence and had the shape of men though they live in the earth and in rocks". Stanzas from Völuspá consisting of dwarf names are then provided to show the lineage of the dwarfs.Faulkes (1998:16—17).
In the book Skáldskaparmál poetic means of referring to the sky are provided, some of which relate to the narrative in Gylfaginning involving Ymir, including "Ymir's skull" and "jötunn's skull", or "burden of the dwarfs" or "helmet of Vestri and Austri, Sudri, Nordri". A portion of a work by the 11th century skald Arnórr jarlaskáld is also provided, which refers to the sky as "Ymir's old skull".Faulkes (1998:88). Later in Skáldskaparmál poetic terms for the earth are provided, including "Ymir's flesh", followed by a section for poetic terms for "sea", which provides a portion of a work by the skald Ormr Barreyjarskald where the sea is referred to as "Ymir's blood".Faulkes (1998:90).
Both the names Aurgelmir and Ymir appear in a list of jötnar in the Nafnaþulur section of Skáldskaparmál.Faulkes (1998:155—156).
==Theories and interpretations==
===Lost sources===
As Gylfaginning presents a cohesive narrative that both quotes stanzas from various poems found in the Poetic Edda (as outlined above) as well as contains unique information without a provided source (such as Auðumbla), scholars have debated to what extent Snorri had access to outside sources that no longer survive and to what extent he synthesized a narrative from the material he had access to.Turville-Petre (1964:276—277) and Davidson (1990:199).
Regarding the situation, scholar Gabriel Turville-Petre comments (1964) that "at the beginning, accord to Snorri's text of the poem, there was nothing but a void, although according to other texts, the giant Ymir existed already then. Considering how Ymir (Aurgelmir) was said to have taken shape, both Snorri and the Vafþrúðnismál, we may think that Snorri followed the better version of Vǫluspá" and, regarding Snorri's account of the cosmogenesis in general, that "from these sketches of the poetic sources from which he chiefly drew it is obvious that Snorri described several incidents which cannot be traced to them, at least in their extant forms". Turville-Petre cites Snorri's account of Auðumbla as a prime example, noting Indo-European parallels (Persian and Vedic) and parallels in the Egyptian goddess Hathor.Turville-Petre (1964:276—277).
Scholar Hilda Ellis Davidson (1964) comments that "the original form of the creation myth in the north is not easy to determine. Snorri knew of at least three separate accounts".Davidson (1990:199).
===Tuisto, parallels, and Proto-Indo-European religion===
In the 1st century CE, Roman historian Tacitus writes in his ethnographic work Germania that the Germanic peoples sing songs about a primeval god who was born of the Earth named Tuisto, and that he was the progenitor of the Germanic peoples. Tuisto is the Latinized form of a Proto-Germanic theonym that is a matter of some debate. By way of historical linguistics some scholars have linked Tuisto to the Proto-Germanic theonym *Tiwaz, while other scholars have argued that the name refers to a "two-fold" or hermaphroditic being (compare Old Swedish tvistra, meaning "separate"). The latter etymology has led scholars to a connection to Ymir on both linguistic and mythical grounds.Davidson (1990:199). But in fact, while Tuisto apparently arises from the root of the word two it is entirely presumptuous to therefore assume the concpet of hermaphrodite. Many concepts arise out of the "two" root. Take the Swedish tvista for example, which is a closer fit to Tuisto linguistically, and means "conflcit/dispute".
By way of historical linguistics and comparative mythology, scholars have linked Ymir to other primordial, sometimes hermaphroditic or twin beings in other Indo-European mythologies and have reconstructed elements of a Proto-Indo-European cosmological dissection. Citing Ymir as a prime example, scholars J. P. Mallory and Douglas Q. Adams comment that "the [Proto-Indo-European] cosmogonic myth is centered around on the dismemberment of a divine being—either anthropomorphic or bovine—and the creation of the universe out of its various elements". Further examples cited include the climactic ending of the Old Irish Táin Bó Cúailnge where a bull is dissected that makes up the Irish geography, and apparently Christianized forms of the myth found in the Old Russian Poem of the Dove King, the Frisian Frisian Code of Emsig, and Irish manuscript BM MS 4783, folio 7a. Among surviving sources, Adams and Mallory summarize that "the most frequent correlations, or better, derivations, are the flowing: Flesh = Earth, Bone = Stone, Blood = Water (the sea, etc.), Eyes = Sun, Mind = Moon, Brain = Cloud, Head = Heaven, Breath = Wind.Adams & Mallory (1997:129).
Adams and Mallory write that "In both cosmogonic myth and the foundation element of it, one of the central aspects is the notion of sacrifice (of a brother, giant, bovine, etc.). The relationship between sacrifice and cosmogony was not solely that of a primordial event but the entire act of sacrifice among the Indo-Europeans might be seen as a re-creation of the universe where elements were being continuously recycled. [ . . . ] Sacrifice thus represents a creative re-enactment of the initial cosmic dismemberment of a victim and it helps return the material stuff to the world".Adams & Mallory (1997:130).
===Other===
Hilda Ellis Davidson further links accounts of the jötunn Þjazi's eyes flung into the heavens by Odin and the frozen toe of Aurvandil tossed into the sky by the god Thor, the eyes in the prior case becoming stars and the toe in the latter case becoming a star known as "Aurvandil's Toe". Davidson comments that "these myths are evidently connected with names of constellations, but the strange reference to a frozen toe suggests that there is some connexion with the creation legend of the giant that emerged from the ice".Davidson (1990:199—200).
==See also==
*Cipactli
*Purusha
*Tiamat
*Kingu
==External links==
* Book of Enoch, chapter 60
== Notes ==
== References ==
* Branston, Brian (1978). Gods & Heroes from Viking Mythology. Eurobook Limited.
* 
* 
* Meid, W. (1992). Die Germanische Religion im Zeugnis der Sprache. In Beck et al., Germanische Religionsgeschichte – Quellen und Quellenprobleme, pp. 486–507. New York, de Gruyter.
* Page, R. I. (1996). Norse Myths. Bath Press, 1990, University of Texas Press.
* Turville-Petre, O. E. G. (1964). Myth and Religion of the North: The Religion of Ancient Scandinavia. Weidenfeld and Nicolson.
* 
* Young, Jean I. (1954). The Prose Edda of Snorri Sturluson: Tales from Norse Mythology. Bowes & Bowes.
Category:Norse mythology
Category:Creation myths