Before the beginning, there was nothing — nothing except two things. Far to the south lay Muspelheim, the world of fire, burning with light and heat since before time began. Far to the north lay Niflheim, the world of ice and mist, where cold rivers ran through eternal darkness. And between these two great worlds lay Ginnungagap — the great void — where nothing moved and nothing existed.
For ages beyond counting, fire burned and ice froze and the void waited between them. Then something happened: the warm air from the south crept into the void, and the cold air from the north crept in to meet it. Where they touched, drops of water began to form. The drops gathered and froze and thawed and gathered again, until slowly — over a very long time — they formed a shape. A vast, sleeping shape. The first giant: Ymir.
Ymir was enormous — bigger than a mountain — and made entirely of ice. As he slept, his breath fogged the void around him. But how would he eat? From the melting ice a magical creature appeared: Audhumla, a great golden cow, whose breath was warm and whose milk flowed as four rivers. Ymir drank from the rivers of milk and grew. And Audhumla found food for herself: she began to lick a great block of salty ice nearby.
Audhumla licked the salt-ice all the first day, and by evening, hair appeared in the block. She licked all the second day, and by evening, a head appeared. She licked all the third day, and by evening, a full man stepped out of the block of ice — tall and strong, with bright eyes and a kind face. His name was Búri, and he was the first of the gods. From Búri came his son Borr, and from Borr came three brothers: Odin, Vili, and Ve.
The three brothers looked around at the void with its ice and fire and sleeping giant, and they said: this is not enough. This void must become something. They were young gods, full of creative energy, and the void was too empty, too silent, too cold. Odin, the eldest, had a vision of what might be. The three brothers spoke together for a long time, making plans. Then they acted.
From Ymir's body — great as a continent — the brothers made the world. His flesh became the earth: brown soil and rolling hills and wide plains. His blood became the seas and rivers and lakes. His bones became the mountains, standing tall and permanent. His teeth and chips of bone became rocks and pebbles. His hair became the forests — oak and ash and pine — covering the hills with green. And they took the great dome of Ymir's skull and raised it above everything to make the sky.
But the sky was dark, and the earth below was dark, and nothing grew without light. Odin flew to Muspelheim — the world of fire — and gathered glowing sparks by the handful. He threw them high into the dome of the sky, and each spark became a star, fixed in place to light the darkness. Some of the largest he set rolling on steady paths to become the sun and moon, and gave them chariots pulled by magical horses to carry them across the sky each day.
When the sun first rose over the new world, it lit everything at once: the mountains' peaks caught the light and burned gold. The seas glittered silver. The forests turned every shade of green. The rivers ran sparkling over their rocky beds. Odin stood on a hilltop and looked at what they had made, and he felt the same thing that anyone feels who has made something beautiful: satisfaction, and the desire to go further.
The brothers built a great hall for the gods in the heavens and called it Asgard, where they would live above the world they had made. They connected Asgard to the earth below with the rainbow bridge Bifrost, whose colors blazed against the morning sky. They planted Yggdrasil — the world tree — at the center of everything, its roots reaching into the depths and its branches into the heights, connecting all things.
But the world felt empty. It had rivers and forests and mountains and seas — all beautiful — but nothing moved through them, nothing lived in them, nothing wondered at their beauty. Odin, Vili, and Ve walked through their new world, and one day by the seashore they found two trees fallen on the beach: a strong ash tree and a graceful elm. The brothers looked at each other. Then Odin knelt down beside them.
Odin breathed life into the trees: warm breath, the gift of spirit and soul. Vili gave them feeling and thought — the ability to feel joy and sorrow, to wonder and to love. Ve gave them the gifts of sight and hearing and speech — the ability to see the beautiful world and to talk about it. And slowly, wonderfully, the trees became people: a man named Ask (which means Ash) and a woman named Embla (which means Elm). They blinked open their eyes in the morning sunlight.
Ask and Embla stood up and looked at the world: the glittering sea, the mountains, the forests, the rivers, the sky full of stars, the sun warm on their faces. They looked at each other and smiled. The three brother-gods watched from Asgard, pleased. Ask and Embla would have children, and those children would have children, until the whole beautiful world was filled with people looking up at the stars their great-great-grandparents' creators had thrown into the sky. And that is how the Norse world came to be.
