The Cosmic Giant Killed by Odin to Create the World - Ymir

Thumbnail photo by KELLEPICS https://pixabay.com/users/kellepics-4893063/Hey everyone, welcome to Mythology Explained. In today's video, we're going to discuss Ymir: the first person to draw breath in all of Norse mythology, no other god, giant, monster, or creature of any sort existing before him; a giant so colossal in size that the blood that gushed from his wounds nearly drowned the entire frost giant race, so colossal in size that his body, ripped apart after he was killed, provided all the material used to create the world. Let's get into it. In the beginning there was Ginnungagap, the great void, and within it were two primordial worlds: Niflheim, a realm of ice, and Museplheim, a realm of fire. Ice flowed from the North and sparks emanated from the south, fire and frost meeting in the middle of the void, causing some of the ice to melt; and there was a quickening within the droplets, and from them was born Ymir, the first giant, a being of staggering size. He was called Aurgelmir by the giants, and he was the ultimate progenitor of the frost giants. While he slept, he began to sweat profusely, two giants, one male and one female, propagating in his left armpit, and at the same time, his legs came together in a sort of union, their coupling producing a third giant. Formed in similar fashion as Ymir, another quickening within droplets of melted ice, Audhumbla, the cosmic cow, came into being. Four rivulets of milk streamed from her udders, and it was on these rivulets Ymir subsisted; Audhumbla, in turn, nourished herself by licking the salty ice that was all around; and interestingly, this was both life giving and life taking for Ymir: life giving because it allowed Audhumbla to produce the milk from which Ymir fed, and life taking because her licking would unearth the harbinger of Ymir's doom. Audhumbla fed incessantly, and at some point, a man's hair became visible. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices