THE CREATION

NORSE MYTHOLOGY

KRISTINE ALVARADO
 THE CREATION OF YMIR

In the beginning, there was nothing. However long before the Earth
was made Nilfheim was created. It contained a spring that flowed into
12 rivers. In the southern part was Muspelheim which was incredibly
hot. In the north, there was Ginnungagap the river froze there, and
everything is covered in ice. The warm air of Muspelheim reached the
coldness of Ginnungagap causing the ice to thaw and drip. The drops
thickened and began to form into a shape of a man. This was the
creation of Ymir, the ancestor of all frost giants.
The ice continued to drip and eventually formed a
cow. Her name was Audumla and she produced
four flowing rivers of milk that Ymir fed from.

The cow was nourished by licking the salty, rime-

covered stones surrounding her. The myth says
that as the day progressed and Audumla began to
lick away the stones, a man began to appear. His
name was Buri and he eventually had a son
named Bor, who proposed marriage to a daughter
of a giant named Bestla. They had three sons, Ve,
Vili, and Odin.
THE CREATION OF EARTH

Odin and his two brothers killed Ymir. They made the earth and
the sky from him, the sea from his blood, the earth from his body,
the heavens from his skull. They took sparks from Muspelheim
and placed them in the sky as the sun, moon, and stars. A great
wall which the gods built out of Ymirs’s eyebrows defend the
place where mankind was to live. The space within was called
Midgard. Here the first man and woman were created from trees,
the man from an ash, the woman from an elm. The first two
humans are Ask and Emba. They were the parents of all mankind.
One of the descendants of the two people created from the logs
had two children. These children was simply too stunning, and
the father honored them with the name Sol and Moon. The gods
were said to be jealous of the children and when their father
seemed less than worthy of them, they took it a sign and
snatched away the children and put them in the sky.

Sol was commanded to drive a chariot carrying the sun across the
skies. She drive so fast in the north because she is chased by a
giant wolf. Moon takes the same path across the sky after his
sister but is not as rush as she is.
YGGDRASIL
A wondrous ash-tree supported the universe.It has nine
realms. It is also said that “one of the roots goes up to
Asgard.”

Beside this root was a well of white, URDA’S WELL, so holy

that none might drink of it. URDA (the past), VERDANDI
(present) and SKULD (the future) the three NORNS who
guarded it.

Another well beneath another root was the WELL OF

KNOWLEDGE, guarded by Mimir the wise.

Over yggdrasil, as over Asgard, hung the treat of destruction.

like the gods it was doomed to die. A serpent and his brood
gnawed continually at the root beside Niflheim, Hel’s home.
The Frost Giants and the Mountain Giants who lived in the
Jotunheim were the enemies of all that is good.
II. THE NORSE
gods

KRISTINE ALARADO
AESIR

• refers to both the god in general or specifically to one

THE DIETIES IN NORSE MYTHOLOGY WERE DIVIDED INTO TWO GROUPS
of the main families of gods.

VANIR

• gods associated with fertility, wisdom and ability to

see the future

the Æsir–Vanir War was a conflict between two groups of deities that ultimately
resulted in the unification of the Æsir and the Vanir into a single pantheon.
 It was different in Asgard. The
No god of Greece could be heroic all
Giants, whose city was Jotunheim,
of the Olympians were immortal and
were the active, persistent enemies
invincible. They could never feel the
of the Aesir, as the gods were
glow of courage; they could never
called, and they not only were an
defy danger. When they fought they
ever-present danger; but knew that
were sure of victory and no harm
in the end complete victory was
could ever come near them.
assured to them.
Of the other gods, only five were important

BALDER- he is primarily associated with light and beauty. Baldur is beloved by his fellow gods
for his beauty, wisdom, and peaceful nature.

THOR - he is a hammer-wielding god associated with lightning, thunder, storms, sacred groves
and trees, strength, the protection of humankind, hallowing, and fertility.

FREYR - was a Norse god of peace and prosperity. Among other things, he was associated with
male virility, sunshine, and fair weather.

HEIMDALL - was one of the Aesir, watchman of the gods, guardian of the heavenly realm of
Asgard, and ruler of holy places.

TYR - THE NORSE GOD OF WAR.

FRIGGA

Odins wife, was reputed to be very wise, but she was also very
silent and she told no one not even Odin, what she knew. She
is a vogue figure, oftenest depicted at her spinning-wheel,
where the threads she spins are of gold, but what she spins
them for was a secret.

FREYA
The goddess of love and beauty, but strangely, to our ideas,
half of the slain on the battle was hers. Freya herself rode to
the battlefield and claimed her share of the dead, and to the
Norse poets that was a natural and fitting office for the
Goddess of Love.
ODIN
Odin has many names and is the god of
both war and death. Half of the warriors
who die in battle are taken to his hall of
Valhalla. He is the one-eyed All-Father,
who sacrificed his eye in order to see
everything that happens in the world.
He has two sons, Balder by his first
wife Frigg and Thor by Jord.
 NCJ
He is a strange solemn figure, always
aloof. Even when he sits at the fists of
the gods, Gladsheim, or with the heroes
in Valhalla, he eats nothing.

The food set before him he gives to the

two wolves who crouch at his feet. On
his shoulders perched two ravens, who
fly each day through the world and bring
him back news of all the men do.The
name of the one is Thought (Hugin) and
of the other Memory (Munin).
 He is supreme among gods and men, yet even so he constantly
sought for more wisdom. He went down to the Well of Wisdom to
beg for the draught from it, and when Mimir answered that he
must pay for it with one of his eyes. He consented to lose the eye.

He won the knowledge of the Runes too, by suffering. Odin

learned them at the cost of mysterious pain. He says in the Elder
Edda that he hung

Nine whole nights on a wind-rock tree,

wounded with spear.
I was offered to Odin, myself to myself,
On that tree of wich no man knows.
VALKYRIEs

A Valkyrie is a figure in Norse mythology depicted as a

warrior woman on horseback, a wolf or boar, and armed
with a spear, who decides the fate of warriors in battle and
carries the dead to Odin’s Valhalla. Valkyrie means
"chooser of the slain", and those chosen will fight beside
Odin at Ragnarök.

Valhalla is Odin’s Hall of Heroes where the spirits of

fallen warriors battle each other all day, return to life and
health at evening, and spend the night drinking.
BALDER was the most beloved of the gods, on earth as in heaven.
His death was the first of the disasters which fell upon the gods.

One night he was troubled with dreams wich seemes to foretell

some great danger to him. When Frigga his mother heard this she
determined to protect him from the least chance of danger. She
went through the world and exacted an oath from everything, all
things with life and without life, never to do him harm.

The gods believed that Frigga had made him safe. They played a
game accordingly which give them much pleasure. They would try
to hit Balder, to throw a storm at him or hurl a dart or shoot an
arrow or stike him with a sword but always the weapon fell short
of him or rolled harmlessly away.
LOKI

He was not a god but the son of a giant and for some
reason never explained Odin had sworn brotherhood
with him. He always hated the good, and he was jealous
of Balder. He went to Frigga disguised as a woman and
entered into talk with her. Frigga told him of her journey
to ensure Balder’s safety and how everything had sworn
to do him no harm. Except for one little shrub, she said
the mistletoe, so insignificant she had passed it by.
That was enough for Loki. He got the mistletoe and went with it to where the gods were
amusing themeselves. HODER, Balder’s brother sat apart. Loki told Hoder to do his part and
throw the twig which is from mistletoe’s branch. Hoder took the mistletoe and hurled it with
all his strenght. Under Loki’s guidance it sped to Balder and pierced his heart. Balder fell to
the ground dead.

Frigga cried out to the gods for a volunteer to go down to Hela and try to ransom Balder.
Hermond one of her sons, offered himself. Odin give him his horse Sleipnir and he sped down
to Niflheim. When Hermond reached Hela with the gods petition, she answered that she
would give Balder back if it were proved to her that all everywhere mourned for him. But if
one thing or one living creature refused to weep for him she would keep him. Heaven and
earth and everything therein wept willingly for the beloved god. Then almost at the end of
their journey they came upon a Giantess and all the sorrow of the world was turned to futility,
for she refused to weep. So Hela kept him dead.
LOKI WAS PUNISHED. The god siezed him and bound him in a deep cavern. Above his
head a serpent was placed so that his venom fell upon his face, causing him unutterable
pain. But his wife, Sigyn, came to help him. She took her place at his side and caught the
venom in a cup. Even so whenever she had to empty the cup and the poison fell on him,
though but for a moment, his agony was so intense that his convulsions shook the earth.