Jotunn

**Jotunns** (singular **jotunn** /ˈjɔːtʊn/; Old Norse: *jötunn* [ˈjɔtunː], or in its normalized scholarly spelling *jǫtunn*, plural *jötnar*/*jǫtnar* [ˈjɔtnɑr]) is a common name for a number of extinct supernatural entities from Norse mythology, in which they played a crucial role. They were mainly adsociated with wild nature and forces of nature, such as snow, cold and fire. Their home world was Utgard, one of the nine home worlds on the tree Yggdrasil in Norse cosmology. The jotunns were often the opponents of the aesir gods, but there is no evidence that they were all evil beings. Rather, they were representatives of wild and untamed nature.

In the myths, all jotunns are descended from the primordial being Ymir, who was a giant frost jotunn or rimethurs, of which the first ones were the result of asexual reproduction from the jotunn's body. Ymir was later killed and his body split apart so that it could be used to create the nine worlds of Norse cosmology. The jotunns survived this by sailing through a flood surge of Ymir's blood. The gods also descended from Ymir, but had come into being through sexual reproduction.

At Ragnarok all jotunns were eradicated.

## Anatomy

In appearance, jotunns could be both incredibly beautiful and human-like, but also hideous and repulsive. Many looked like disgusting, troll-like monsters with nightmarish faces and shards of glass-like teeth and claws. Some of them were small like monkeys, others the size of houses. The god Loki was an example of a pretty, human-like jotunn.

## Types of jotunns

In Norse mythology itself, many different terms for different supernatural beings appear, which have later been interpreted as being of jotunn descendance. Of these, among others, fire jotunns appear. The only jotunns mentioned in *The Great Devil War* are mainly ugly troll-like jotunns, of which there are both small monkey-like jotunns and giant-sized jotunns, both simply referred to as "jotunns". Loki, who is of jotunn descendance but resembles a human, and the fire jotunn Surt, are also mentioned.

## Mythological background

According to Norse mythology, everything living are descended from the primordial giant jotunn Ymir, who was a frost jotunn. Most of the early jotunns he originated were frost jotunns like himself. According to Chapter 5 of *Gylfaginning* or *The Beguiling of Gylfi*, a book from Snore Sturlusson's work the *Prose Edda*, Ymir himself came into existence in the primordial yawning void of Ginnungagap (Old Norse: "yawning gap"), as the rime from the icy world of Niflheim, located north of Ginnungagap, and the heat of the flaming and first existing world of Muspelheim, located south of Ginnungagap, met in the void, which lead to the rime thawing and dripping intensely into Ginnungagap and falling into the form of Ymir. Ymir subsisted for a long time on four rivers of milk flowing from the teats of the primordial cow Audumbla, which itself had been produced from droplets falling next to Ymir.

Through asexual reproduction, Ymir gave birth to beings out of his arms, including jotunns that were both ugly and pretty, and either his feet or his legs bred with each other and gave birth to even more beings. Meanwhile, Audumbla licked free a man named Borr, the first of the æsir gods, from the salty rime-stones she was living off of. After several jotunn generations, gods like the Aesir Odin, Villi and Ve were born, and these were also related to Ymir, and they killed Ymir and used his body to build the nine worlds. His blood became the oceans, his hair the trees, his bones the hills, the mountains, the rocks and the earth, his skull the sky and his brain the clouds. Around one of these worlds, which they called Midgard, they placed a protective "wall" made of Ymir's eyebrows. According to myth they made the first two humans, Ask and Embla, of driftwood. The jotunns survived the event by sailing down through Ymir's flowing blood. Thereafter, the majority of the jotunns lived in the home world of Jotunheim (Old Norse: *Jǫtunheimr*), sometimes called Utgard (Old Norse: *Utgarðr*). In Scandinavian folklore, the uncertainty surrounding the jotunns gave rise to negative portrayals of the beings, and they were often portrayed as being hideous, magical and evil, and as the eternal adversaries of the Aesir gods, although some of them helped and supported the gods. Yet there are signs that the Norse people did not regard jotunns as beings who were evil by nature, but as representatives of untamed nature and forces of nature. Sometimes they have also been portrayed as chaos monsters, however, it is most often creatures like Fenrir and the Midgard Setpent that are described with that word.

According to folklore and folk beliefs, the prose texts in Snorri Sturluson's *Prose Edda*, the skaldic poems in the *Peotic Edda* and the texts of the Icelandic sagas, the jotunns live in the home worlds Jotunheim (or Utgard), Muspelheim and Niflheim. Jotunheim is the home world of most of the jotunns of which in mythology are mentioned clay jotunns (from Norse *leirjötnar*, singular *leirjötunn*), *bergiser*, mountain pigs, mountain people or mountain jotunns (from Old Norse *bergrisar*, singular *bergrisi*), sea jotunns (from Old Norse *sjórisar*, singular *sjórisi*) stormturs, wind jotunns or storm jotunns (from Old Norse *vindþursar*, singular *vindþurs*), rimturser or frost jotunns (from Old Norse *hrímþursar*, singular *hrímþurs*) and fire jotunns or eldturs (from Old Norse *eldjötnar*, singular *eldjötnar* or *eldþursar*, singular *eldþurs*). The fire jotunns are said to originate from Muspelheim and the frost jotunns are from Niflheim.

Troll (Norse *trollar*, singular *troll*) is also a term used for jotunns. It is also possible that all the terms describe vastly different beings, which are to be seen as completely separate species.

## References

### References to books in *The Great Devil War*

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Kenneth B. Andersen. *The Fallen Devil*. (Publication House) Month #, 2020. (Original Danish version published September 16, 2016 by Høst & Søn)

### Notes

1. ↑ It is clear that Kenneth B. Andersen has researched the sources of the Old Norse religion and mythology, as he, with his descriptions of the jotunns, makes it clear that not all jotunns were giant of size.