Ymir (pronounced “EE-meer", meaning Scream) is an old Norse hermaphroditic giant and the first creature to come into being in the Norse creation narrative... He is the ancestor of all jötnar (Jötunn).
According to the medieval Icelandic scholar Snorri Sturluson, Ymir was born when fire from Muspelheim and ice from Niflheim met in the abyss of Ginnungagap.
Ymir was suckled by the primeval cow Auðhumbla, and several other giants spontaneously sprang from his sweat..
Ymir grew so large and so evil until his two brothers, Vili and Vé, who are generally considered to be hypostases (extensions or alternate versions) of Odin, slew the primordial giant (Ymir). The blood that flowed from Ymir's wound was so great that almost all the frost giants drowned in the torrent.
Only the frost giants Bergelmer and his wife escape the flood in a chest, arriving on the mountain of Jötunheim (Jotunheim), which became the home of the giants...
As one of the poems in the Poetic Edda, Grímnismálor “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
Midgard, home of the sons of men
And from his brains
They sculpted the grim clouds.
More:
See Auðhumbla:
See Jötunn:
See Skadi :
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