Snorri Sturluson, who wrote it, spent a few years doing research among the people and among older texts - then he gathered all his information in this book, called the Prose Edda and which tells about the adventures of Gods and people. Read more about it in the introduction.
In Scandinavia, long before the art of writing was known or used, the people kept their sagas and legends alive by oral transmission, they passed them from generation to generation and because of that, they survived for centuries. This oral tradition also brought about changes in the stories through the years.
One of the most famous authors during this time was Snorri Sturluson, Icelandic poet and historian. He lived at the turn of the twelfth century and was killed in 1241. He wrote the Prose Edda, also known as the Younger Edda or Snorri's Edda, in which he retells all about the gods and the legends, but as he was a Christian, he ridicules the gods all the time and we can feel the distance he has towards the Æsir cult.
In the morning of Time - when Ymir lived,
-Völuspá, The Poetic Edda
In the mysterious beginning, there was Ginnungagap, an endless gulf. It was so enormous that it could reach in all directions forever. There were space enough for a billion worlds and in addition there were space for more.
The other big world in Ginnungagap was called Niflheim. It was a world of frozen, dreary ground covered by snow and ice and the air was filled with cold fog.
After eternities of time, these two worlds of fire and ice had to face eachother...
All of Niflheim's ice wasn't venomous, and in the pure ice, when it melted, a cow was formed. Her belly was enormous and her legs stood as four pillars in the corners of the universe. From her giantic udder, four streams of milk poured out and feeded Aurgelmir. The Ice-giants called her Audhumbla (THE FIRST COW).
All these beings had been created, and because of the venom from Elivagur, some of them were evil. Others, like Buri, was good-hearted. But everybody knows that godness and badness can't live in peace and soon a terrible fight would take place between the cosmic powers...
The sons of Buri lifted - the land to the sky,
-Völuspá, The Poetic Edda
The Ice-giants were a dark and violent race, they were malformed monsters. Aurgelmir's (THE FIRST RUMBLER) son, who was given birth to by his feet, was a glacier-creature with six heads and his name was Trudgelmir (THE GREAT RUMBLER), and his son was known as Bergelmir (THE MOUNTAIN RUMBLER).
From the south the Sun layed - together with the Moon,
-Völuspá, The Poetic Edda
Nör was one of the first giants who lived in Jotunheim (THE HOME OF THE GIANTS),and he had a very beautiful daughter, who in none way looked like the Nordic women. She had dark skin and black hair and her name was Night.
The gods decided that every 24-hours period should be split into two 12-hours periods, one dark and the other one light. The gods gave Night and her son Day one carriage each and sent them up in the sky to drive around the earth, one after the other, every 24 hours.
In the oldest time, there lived a man called Mundilfari (HE WHO MOVES ON SCHEDULE). At this time, all the stars sailed free in the sky, so the gods ordered him to keep an eye on the time.
-Völuspá, the Poetic Edda.
Far, far East of Midgard, where it always is winter and where dark forests cover the ground, troll women live who are called Iron-wickers. One of them gave birth to twelve giants, all born in the shape of wolves. Their father was the big wolf Fenrir. Two of the "wolf-giants" grew so big, that the powers of evil eventually were able to send them up on the sky to hunt the Sun and the Moon. Skoll was the name of the wolf hunting the Sun and Hani the name of him who hunts Moon.
From the party - came three,
Not had they breath - nor had they soul,
-Völuspá, The Poetic Edda
Burs three sons were called Odin, Vili and Ve. Odin kept his name but the other two were known as Lodir (VILI) and Honir (VE).
The first humans went from hand to hand away from the sea and into their new world...
We have choosen to divide this into two section, THE PROSE EDDA and
And later on, from the year 900 AD, these Sagas and Myths were written down and have ever since been quiet witnesses of the old Scandinavian folk belief and religion during this period of time. The texts that are still readable are not necessary the original ones. Surely the same Legend was written down more than once, and each new time with small variations. It may be different persons, or other places involved. The authors are almost always unknown, we can just guess. What we read today is copies of copies, many of them "edited" so they would be proper enough for the Christian religion.
In spite of this, he is today known as the "father" of the Æsir cult...
There is also an Elder Edda, also known as the Poetic Edda, from which we have "stolen" many quotations found within this site. Enjoy!
It is from these book as we know so much about the Æsir cult today. Here starts the Younger Edda, retold by us for you. Starting from the beginning...
Was no sand, no water - no surging waves;
Earth existed not - nor heaven above,
But only Ginnungagap - and grass nowhere.
You would get ill if you would even try to imagine it to yourself, you would turn weightless and your mind would be struck with terror, because it has no length or width, no up or down. In the very beginning there was not anything in Ginnungagap that a human-brain could understand, not a drop of water, not a blade of grass or a branch, not even a grain of sand.
There were no light, no darkness, no silence but still no sounds - only a gaping gulf.
This nothing had no shape, but it was surely not empty. Only the gods knew its secret.
After the beginning, this nothing started to become something and in it, there seemed to be two divided parts. First there was the world of the fire, called Muspelheim (THE HOME OF THE WORLD DESTROYERS). No ordinary creature could excist there, because the land was all ablaze and the air as well.
Later on, the Fire-giants would make it their home.
The Æsir (THE GODS) never did get close to this area, because the heat was so intensive and the flames so powerful that anything that got to close, would get burned and turned to ash by them.
But most frightening of all was Surt, the most savage of the Fire-giants, who guarded the flaming borders with a sword of blazing fire in his hands.
He didn't let anyone pass, not even the Æsir. He stood there from the beginning and would stand there until the end, Ragnarök (THE JUDGEMENT DAY). Surt's hair was on fire and streams of lava poured down his malformed body, made of fire.
No wonder it was told that Surt would spread flames and stinking smoke all over the universe and burn everything that was alive to black ash, when Ragnarök came.
Niflheim as well as Muspelheim had lasted for eternity, long before our world was created. In the middle of Niflheim was a foaming and gushing well called Hvergelmir.
Another clamouring well in Nifelheim was called Elivagur. Some people claim that Hvergelmir and Elivagur only are different names for the same well. Anyway, Elivagur's water flushed over Niflheim's desolate snowland in the north and created big glaciers which formed a big mountain range of ice.
Above it, there were winds filled with hails, snowstorms and freezing rain.
But through Elivagur, there came a venomous foam which congealed into black ice. When the foam was stiff and didn't move any longer, it started to form big black ice mountains which just kept on growing as the foam continued to ooze from Elivagur. Hvergelmir's water had turned into ice and filled the entire north by then and soon Hvergelmir and Elivagur had filled all of Niflheim with heavy ice.
They finally did and then, the most mystical of happenings took place, somthing that no man can explain - the creation of life. When the ice touched the fire from Muspelheim, there was a great explosion.
The black, venomous ice was turned alive by the heat and over the entire Ginnungagap, a giant's body was formed. He had the appaerance of a man and from the beginning, he hardly moved at all.
The boiling ice gave breath to his cruel face, his torso and his legs. His descendants, the Ice-giants, would later on give him the name Aurgelmir (THE FIRST RUMBLER) or Ymir (THE GIANT OF CHAOS), as the know the secret of his birth.
Aurgelmir lay sleeping in his porridge of venomous, stinking mud and ice. After some time, his body began to solidify and he started sweating. In his armpits, a man and a woman were created and his feet bred a son with six heads called Trudgelmir (THE GREAT RUMBLER). From these three creatures, the Ice-giants descend.
She needed nourishment herself and licked the glaciers around her, which were salt. And by licking the ice, the shape of something new started to come out.
The first day, the hair of a man could be seen. The following day, his whole head was in sight and the third day, a complete man stood in front of her. The gods called him Buri, as he was their progenitor. He was handsome and a mighty god. He begat a son called Bur who's wife was Bestla, daughter of the giant Boltorn. Bur and Bestla begat three sons, named Odin, Vili and Ve.
Fair Midgard - the mighty ones made;
Sun shone from the south - on land and stone,
From the black soil - green herbs grew.
Whenever Aurgelmir, Trudgelmir and Bergelmir met for deliberation, the noise was so terrible that finally Odin, Vili and Ve, the three sons of Buri, licked out of the ice by Audhumbla (THE FIRST COW), had had enough.
Odin, Vili and Ve had an argument with Aurgelmir and during a terrible fight, they killed him. When he fell, chopped into pieces, his blood poured out and all the giants drowned, except Aurgelmir's youngest son, Bergelmir, who swam in the blood, pulling his wife by the hair, and saved them up on the top of a wind-mill.
Because of him, the Ice-giant could continue to exist.
Odin, Vili and Ve pulled Aurgelmir's corp into the center of Ginnungagap. His body had so many wounds, that the blood that was still oozing from his corpse formed the ocean. All oceans, seas, lakes, rivers, water-falls, ponds and creeks came from Aurgelmir's blood.
The sons of Buri started to work his body, almost as if it would have been dough, until they were pleased. They made the framework of the earth, with its hills, big river channels, empty lakes and the dry bottom of the ocean. In all these empty spaces, they poured Aurgelmir's blood until the earth was surrounded by the ocean, to which all the rivers flowed.
They broke his bones into splinters and formed the rocks and mountains. They made stony beaches and small cliffs and stones from his teeth, bushes and trees of his hair. From the humus of his flesh, the Dwarf race came as if they were maggots.
The three sons of Buri had now created the earth, the beaches and the ocean, but yet no sky. Therefore they placed the skull cap as a dome over the earth. To make the cranium stay, they ordered four of the Dwarfs to stand in the corners of the world and keep the sky up. The dwarfs were called North, South, East and West.
The wind was created by Odin alone, by placing a giant called Hråsvelg, in the shape of an eagle, at the end of the earth, where he sat, flapping its wings.
Now, the sons of Buri had to make the cupola look lighter and not so sceary. They caught sparks from Muspelheim and placed them inside the cupola, some of them moving back and forth to mark the change of the years. But still there were no sun or moon and the day wasn't divided from the night.
Odin, Vili and Ve donated a big land-area to the giants, outside the ocean, where they could live. The land was called Jotunheim (THE HOME OF THE GIANTS). At last, the young gods took Aurgelmir's eyebrows and placed them in a circle as a bank around the earth. They named the land Midgard (THE LAND OF THE HUMANS/THE LAND IN THE CENTRE).
Her right hand - around the rim of Heaven;
Sun knew not - where she lived,
Moon knew not - which powers he possessed,
The stars knew not - where to stay.
She used to place shining sparkles in her long hair, and many men wanted to marry her. She couldn't decide which one so she married three, one after another.
Her first husband was a young and handsome man called Nagelfari, but their marriage didn't last for very long, but long enough for them to have a son called Aud (SPACE.).
Her second husband is very mysterious, his name was Anar (ANOTHER / THE SECOND), and it seems to be a picked name and everyone wondered who he was. But nobody found out. Night and Anar had a daughter called Earth.
Surprisingly enough, Odin also had a daughter called Earth, so maybe he was the mysterious Anar...
Night's third husband was Delling (DAWN) and their son's name was Day. He looked exactly as his father, very blond and handsome.
Night drove first and her leader-horse, called Hrimfaxi spreads dew over the ground every morning when he chewed on his bridle.
Behind her, Day gallops, and his leader-horse was called Skinfaxi and both Skinfaxi's and Day's hair shone and gave light to the sky and the earth.
Mundilfari had two childeren and he thought they were so shining and beautiful, that no other child could be compared to them. The boy's name was Moon and the girl's name was Sun. When the gods heard about them, they got angry. Such pride in the children, they couldn't bear as Mundilfari was only a human!
So they snatched the children from their father and had them working in the sky. The girl, Sun, rode the horses which pulled the sun-carriage. Those horses were beautiful and strong, they were called Arvakur (EARLY RISER) and Allsvinn (THE EXTREMELY STRONG).
Year after year, the carriage follows their track over the sky. As the sun is very hot, there was a undestroyable shield between the carriage and the horses, which was known as Svalin (COLD AS STEEL).
Sun's brother had to ride the horses that pulled the moon-carriage. His journey was much more difficult, as the moon's shape changes from one day to another. It was hard for Moon to deal with this himself, so he stole two other children from the earth, to help him. A little boy called Hjuki and his sister Bil, who was up on a high mountain to get water from a well. They had been sent there by their father, and he never saw them again...
The children slowly pull a veil over the moon, at least that is what people think, but nobody really knows.
In the East - the old one sat
And raised - the brood of Fenrir;
Terror-wolves - and one of them,
In the guise of a Troll - shall swallow the Sun.
The two wolves hunts the carriages across the sky, as if they were rabbits or hares. The wolves are shaggy and black-haired. Sun och Moon has no place to hide, they are doomed to flee forever.
But ultimately the wolves will catch the two children and their wagons and horses and eat them up. The sky will be filled with blood, and violent winds will rush howling across the dark sky...
Strong and mighty - Æsir;
Found on shore - fainted and pale:
Ash and Elm - without destiny.
No blood, no voice - no golden skin;
Odin and Honir - gave spirit and senses,
Lodir gave blood - and blooming skin.
One morning when the three brothers walked along the shore, admiring the landscape which they had created, they found two drift-wood logs.
They stopped when they stood next to them. The shadows of Lodir and Honir fell on the two logs and when they moved their arms, the shadows made the logs seem to be alive.
Odin watched all this, then he fell on his knees and kissed the logs. By kissing them he gave them his god-spirit. Then the three retired to see what was going to take place.
The bark started to split and wind up and soon two naked bodies appaered, one man and one woman. Their skins were white as snow and they lay still, with thier eyes opened...
The young gods looked at eachother without speaking, they knew what to do already. As Odin had set Woman and Man free, and given them life and spirit, it was now time for the other two brothers to give them their gifts.
Lodir looked at the woman and then he gave her the power of youth, the use of the five senses and the capacity of thinking. She sat up and looked around, astonished over the beautiful world.
Then Lodir gave his power to the man. Hot blood started to rush through the man's veines and he also got the five senses and the capability to think. Honir gave them the power to speak.
The two new beings, the first man and the first woman, looked at eachother, rose and embraced eachother. Odin gave the man the name Ash and the woman's name became Elma, after the wood in which they had come from.
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