Norse gods

Chapter 4 Before It All Begins, and After
1
There was nothing before it all began—no land, no firmament, no stars, and no sky, only the invisible kingdom of fog and the eternally burning kingdom of fire.

To the north is the dark world of Niflheim.Eleven poisonous rivers run through the mists of the Dark World, and their common source is Hvagmere, the great whirlpool that dwells at the center of the Dark World.Niflheim is colder than arctic, where a dim fog hangs over everything.The sky is hidden behind the fog, and the earth is also covered by cold fog.

To the south is Muspal.Muspar is the land of fire.There, everything is burning.Muspar is bright, Niflheim is gray; Muspar is lava, Niflheim is frozen.The earth was burning, and the heat was billowing like a blacksmith's furnace.There is no footing here, no sky, nothing but hot air and sparks, nothing but molten stone and burning embers.

On the edge of Muspar's flame, where the mist burns into light, at the end of the earth, Surt stands.Surt is the earliest creation, he existed before the gods.He's still there now, too.He wields a flaming sword, and to him bubbling lava is no different than freezing fog.

It is said that only at Ragnarok, the end of the world, will Soult leave his position.He will march from Muspar with the flaming sword in hand, and one by one the gods will fall by the sword.

2
Between Muspal and Niflheim is a void, a place with nothing, no concrete shape of its own.The emptiness into which the rivers of the Mistlands rush is called the Ginlunga Chasm, or "The Gap."After a long time, with the passage of time, these poisonous rivers between the land of fire and the land of fog slowly solidified into huge glaciers.The ice on the north side of the chasm was covered with freezing fog and hail, while on the south side of the chasm, where the glaciers and the flames met, the lava and sparks of Muspar met the ice, and the steaming steam from the land of flames blew onto the glaciers, making There is a warm and warm wind.

Where fire and ice meet, the glacier melts.The melting water gave birth to life: a giant like a man, but bigger than the world, bigger than any giant that ever lived.The giant was neither male nor female, but both at the same time.

This giant called himself Ymir, the ancestor of all giants.

Besides Ymir, the water from the melting ice gave birth to other life: a giant hornless bull, so big that no human mind can imagine it.It licked the salty ice that was its food as well as its drink, and the milk that flowed from its four udders like rivers.Milk nourishes Ymir.

The giant drank the milk and grew.

Ymir called the cow Odembra.

The cow licks the ice with its pink tongue, and a human figure emerges from it.On the first day there was only hair, on the second day there was a head, and on the third day the whole person appeared.

This is Bulli, the ancestor of all gods.

Ymir was asleep, and while he was asleep, he was giving birth: a giant male and a giantess were born from its left armpit, and a six-headed giant was born from its legs.These children of Ymir are also the ancestors of all the giants in the future.

Bulli took a wife from a giant, and bore a son, named Bull.Bull married Bestara, the daughter of a giant, and had three sons: Odin, Willy, and Fei.

Bull's three sons, Odin, Willy and Fay, have grown up.As they grew, they watched from afar the flames of Muspar and the darkness of Niflheim.Both places are off-limits and mean death to them.The three brothers were imprisoned forever in the Ginlunga Gap, between fire and mist.They probably never went anywhere else either.

There is neither sea nor sand, neither grass nor stones, nor soil, nor trees, nor sky, nor stars.There was neither world nor sky nor earth then.The gap exists where there is nothing: it is just a void waiting to be filled with life and being.

It's time to create everything.Faye, Willy, and Odin looked at each other and talked about what they needed to do in the Kinlungar Chasm.They talked about the universe, life and the future.

Odin, Willy and Fay kill the giant Ymir.it is necessary.There is no other way to create the world.Ymir's death is the origin of everything that made life possible.

They stabbed the gigantic giant to death.The amount of blood that flowed from Ymir's body was unimaginable: suddenly, the blood gushed out like a fountain, it was as salty as sea water, and as gray as a flood.So powerful and so unfathomable was the torrent of blood that it drowned or swept away all the giants.Only Ymir's grandson Brimel and his wife survived.They grabbed a floating wooden box that carried them like a boat.All the giants we see today, and all the giants we fear so much, are descended from them.

The three Odin brothers used Ymir's body to create the land.Ymir's bones were piled up by them into hills and cliffs.

The rocks, stones, and sand that we see today are fragments of Ymir's teeth and bones—fragments shattered in battles with Odin, Willy, and Fay.

The sea that surrounds the world is Ymir's blood and sweat.

Look up at the sky and what you see is the inside of Ymir's skull.The stars, planets, comets and meteors seen at night are sparks flying from Muspel.What clouds do you see during the day?They used to be Ymir's brains, even now, who knows what they are thinking?

3
The world is a flat disk, surrounded by the sea.Giants live on the edge of the world, by the sea.

In order to expel these giants, the three brothers Odin, Willy and Fei used Ymir's eyelashes to build a wall to enclose the middle part of the world.They called the enclosed part Midgard, which means "garden in the middle".

Midgard began as an empty space.It was a beautiful land, but no one walked the prairies, no one fished the clear rivers, no one explored the mountains or looked up at the clouds.

Odin, Willy and Fay understand that no world is complete unless it is inhabited.They searched everywhere, but found no one.At last, among the pebbles on the sea side, they found two stumps.The two tree stumps floated in the waves for a long time before they were finally washed ashore.

The first stump is an ash tree.The ash tree is graceful and resilient, with a deep root system.Ash does not break easily and is an excellent material for carving, making tool handles or spear shafts.

The second stake they found was an elm.The elm stump and the ash stump were so close together that they almost touched.Elm is graceful, yet hard.Elm can be made into the hardest boards and the beams of houses: you can build most of a house, or even a whole house, with elm.

The three brothers took the two stumps.They erected tree stumps nearly a person's height on the sand.Odin supported the stump, and breathed lightly, breathing life into the stump.Now they are no longer dead logs on the beach, but alive.

Willy gave them will, intelligence, and motivation, so they moved and began to desire.

Fee carved the stakes, giving them human shapes.He carved their ears so they could hear; He carved their eyes so they could see; He carved their lips so they could talk.

The two tree stumps standing on the beach became two naked people.Fee carved male genitals into one and female genitals into the other.

The three brothers made clothes for the woman and the man to cover their bodies.On the fringes of the world, on the frigid, sea-washed sands, clothes can also be used to keep you warm.

The last thing they gave these two was names.They named the man Asker, or Ash, and the woman Embra, or Elm.

Asker and Embra are the parents of all of us: every human being lives from his parents, his parents' parents, and his parents' parents' parents.If you go back, the ancestors of all of us are Asker and Embra.

Embra and Asker remained in Midgard, in the middle of the wall the god had built for them with Ymir's eyelashes.They made their home in Midgard, where they were sheltered from the giants and monsters outside.In the safe home of Midgard, they gave birth to their children.

Because of this, Odin is called the father of the gods.Because he is the father of all gods, and because he breathed life into the grandparents of the grandparents of us all.Whether we are gods or men, Odin is our father.

(End of this chapter)