This document is copyrighted (c) 2000 by Nicole Janice Wallace. It can not be used under any circumstances without the permission of it's author, myself. If you use this information for a paper or anything else, please footnote it properly! Any questions, please write nicole_wallace@hotmail.com
Nicole Janice Wallace
The Icelandic Saga
ENG 120
Connections in Creationism
Similarities in the creation of the Christian and Old Norse worlds
Around 1000 AD, Iceland was undergoing a conversion to Christianity. The Icelanders had to give up their old mythological pagan views and values of the world and accept Jesus Christ and his values. The gap between paganism and Christianity seems to be unable to be bridged but upon a closer look, a lot of the Old Norse mythology coincides with Christianity on several themes, notably with the creation of the world.
The concept of god(1) in Old Norse religion consists of several gods that are in the image of humans. The head of these gods is Oðin, the All-Father. In Christianity, there is only one God, who is also referred to as Father. The Christian God made humans in his image. But the question is where do these "god-like humans" and these "humans made in the image of God" come from?
Upon Gylfi's inquiry of what Oðin's greatest achievement is, he discovers that "his [Oðin] greatest achievement, however, is the making of man and giving him a soul which will live and never die, although his body will decay to dust or burn to ashes." (2) The idea of dust also occurs in the Bible "all are from the dust and all turn to dust again." (3) and God created humans from dust: "And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being."(4) However, in Old Norse Mythology, there are several generations of humans that come out of several different places.
The first generation of humans come from the armpits of a giant named Ymir. "Then there grew under his left arm, a man and woman, and one of his legs got a son with the other, and that is where the families of frost ogres come from." (5) These humans however were more giant-like than human, hence them becoming the families of frost ogres.
The second generation came from Ymir's cow. The cow would like the ice blocks because they tasted salty and little by little humans thawed out of the ice. This human was called Buri who had a son Bor. Bor marries and has three sons, one of whom is Oðin, the All-Father of Norse gods. The Norse gods are thus created into an already existing realm of living beings.
The concept of salt is also relevant because the Bible also has a reference to humans being the salt of the Earth:
You are the salt of the Earth, but if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men. (6)
If this passage is put into context with the Old Norse passage about the salty ice blocks, it can be interpreted that if the salt loses its flavor, then the cow would stop licking the ice blocks and humans would stop being formed. The living beings (giants, etc.) that already exist would trample on the salty ice without giving it any special meaning.
The third generation of humans that occur in the Old Norse tradition resemble real humans today.
The sons of Bor found two trees and they picked these up and created men from them. The first gave them spirit and life; the second, understanding and power of movement; the third, form, speech, hearing and sight. They gave them clothes and gave them names. The man was called Ask(7) and the woman Embla; and from them have sprung the races of men who were given Miðgarð to live in. (8)
The world in which these human beings were brought into needs to be examined. In the Old Norse world, humans were bred into a world of chaos, where giants and other creatures already existed. There was little order to their world because everything existed on a very fine balance with everything else. An example of this delicate balance is the ash Yggðrasil whose roots were located in three different worlds and whose body was being eaten by serpents and repaired by fairies. (9)
The book of Genesis in comparison appears to be more orderly. First there was God who then created the world, then light and darkness, day and night, land and water, stars and planets, living creatures, and then people. There are six days of creation and one day of rest. He creates a perfect world where chaos is non-existent and order rules over everything he created. However, it does not last that way.
The two people he created, Adam and Eve, eat the fruit of the forbidden fruit tree. They are then banished from this world of perfection and into life, as we know it now on Earth. Their son Cain even murders his brother Abel. The chaos has started. Throughout the rest of the Bible, there are many scenes of chaos. Plagues, exodus from Egypt, and other incidents show that we are truly living in a fallen world. Even the death of Jesus Christ shows that the world functions outside of our own spheres and there is nothing we can do about it.
This concept of chaos and being out of control can be easily understood by anyone living in Scandinavian society at the beginning to the millenium [1000AD]. Their world of violence and struggle towards survival was very similar to the struggle for survival in the Bible.
Ironically both creation stories have trees as the symbol of the instability and imbalance in the world. It is ironic because men were created from the tree Yggdrasil in the Old Norse mythology and the trees in the garden of Eden provided substanence for the body and Jesus, the vine and we are the branches, was substenance for the soul. The fruit tree in the garden of Eden caused original sin and the fall of man. In the Nordic world, the tree of Yggdrasil was aligned on such a delicate balance between the serpants and the fairies and where the roots were placed that its arrangement alone was chaotic. All of these forces were competing for the same tree which is symbolic of Nordic people who were all competing for limited resources. Now the external forces of chaos have been examined, an internal force must be discovered. This internal force is human beings and our choices. This concept of human responsibility is one major difference between the two belief systems.
In the Bible, chaos is created from the original sin of Adam and Eve. Once they are evicted from the Garden of Eden, things start to go wrong. The people get lead astray and pretty soon, God had to destroy the world with a massive flood where only Noah and the people and animals in his ark survived. In the Old Norse mythology, chaos is actually created from people's choices in the world and the gods. Loki is a primary example of a god who constantly wrecks havoc on his fellow gods.
Loki is constantly starting trouble. First he fathers the wolf Fenrir who has to be fettered because he would cause so much trouble to the world. It is told that in the end of the world, Fenrir will help destroy it. Loki also bet the sun and sky as well the goddess of fertility, Freyja, to a builder. The gods then had to come together and make a plan to win the bet. Loki also kills Baldr, the Norse god who is innately good. Loki does so by finding a loophole in the protection spell that Frigg cast upon Baldr. Loki also kills Hreiðmar's son and the Æsir have to give an otter's hide in gold to compensate it. There are many other incidents concerning Loki and any passage about Loki is almost guaranteed to contain some chaos or huge error on Loki´s part.
In conclusion, the two worlds, both Christian and Nordic, were governed by a higher being or beings, and had an explanation of creation and the first humans.While they were different on the surface, the inner meaning was ver similar. Thus the fundamental beliefs in both religions (higher being, purpose in the chaos of life) were similar enough to facilitate the conversion into Christianity.
(1)For further reference, the little g in god refers to the Old Norse gods. The G in God refers to the one true Christian God.
(2)The Prose Edda pg. 31
(3)Ecc 3:20
(4) Gen 2:7
(5) The Prose Edda pg. 35
(6) Matthew 5:14
(7) Ask means Ash and the translation for Embla is not clear although it has been thought to mean Elm.
(8) The Prose Edda pg. 37
(9) Description of this tree: "It is by the ash Yggðrasil... "The ash is the best and greatest of all trees; its branches spread over the whole world and reach up over heaven. The tree is held in position by three roots that spread far out; one is among the Æsir, the second among the frost ogres, where once was Ginnungagap, and the third extends over Níflheim, and under that root is the well Hvergelmir; but Niðhogg gnaws at the root from below. Under the root that turns in the direction of the frost ogres lies the spring of Mimir in which is hidden wisdom and understanding...The third root of the ash tree is in the sky, and under that root is the very sacred spring called the Spring of Urð. ... There is a great deal to tell about it. In the branches of the ash sits an eagle and it is very knowledgeable, and between its eyes sits a hawk called Veðrfolnir. A squirrel called Ratatosk springs up and down the ash tree and conveys words of abuse exchanged between the eagle of Niðhogg. Four hearts leap about the branches of the ash and eat the shoots...In Hvergelmir there are so many serpents that no tongue can count them.... It is said further that the Norns who live near the spring of Urð draw water from the spring every day and along with it, the clay that lies round about the spring, and they besprinkle the ash to that its branches shall not wither or decay. But that water is so sacred that everything that comes into the spring becomes as white as the film (which is called "skin") that lies within the eggshell. pg. 42-45
(c)2000