Yggdrasil, the World-Tree.
The Asatru / Heathen religion: The Shaping of the Worlds and Wyrd
In the first poem of the Poetic Edda,” Völuspá” (“Prophecy of the Völva”), the ancient etin-seeress, recalls her earliest memories of the time “when Ymir lived, when there was neither earth nor heavens over, and no green things anywhere.” The Prose Edda tells us more of the creation of the first things. First there were the icy Niflheimr (“Mist-World,” or Nibel-Home) and the fiery Muspellheimr (Muspell-Home). The venomous rivers which together are called Élivágar sprang from the well Hvergelmir (“Seething Cauldron”), flowing down the side of Nibel-Home where they froze into the layers of a growing glacier. The ice was melted again by the sparks and molten particles that flew from Muspell-Home; and where the rime thawed and dripped, the drops were quickened by the heat and became a manlike figure – Ymir, first of the giants. As the etin Vafthrúdhnir tells Wodan in “Vafthrúdhnismál,” “From Élivágar frothed venom-drops / and waxed til there was an etin. / From his aett are all (etins) come / thus are they terrible all” (st. 31). As Ymir slept, he sweated; male and female rime-thurses came forth from under his arm, and one of his legs fathered a six-headed son on the other.
From the dripping of the ice also came the ur-cow (“protocow”) Audhumbla on whose milk the ancient rime-thurse fed; but Audhumbla licked the rim of the ice-stones which were salty, and under the licking of her tongue came forth the shape of a man who was fair and mighty, the first of the race of gods. He was named Buri he got a son named Bor, who married an etin-maid called Bestla, the daughter of the giant Bolthorn. Bolthorn also had a son from whom Wodan learned much wisdom; it is thought that this son, Wodan's uncle, is Mímir, keeper of the Well of Memory, because Mímir acts in the traditional role of mother's-brother to Wodan, teaching him the wisdom of his etin-forebears. It is said that Bor and Bestla had three sons, Wodan or Odin, Will or Villi, and Wih or Ve, (“Holiness”); but Will and Holiness are clearly hypostases of Wodan/Odin himself, as Snorri Sturluson implies in the Prose Edda when he has the Wodanic triplicity “High, Just-as-High, and Third” tell Gylfi: “And that is my troth, that this Wodan and his brothers must be the rulers of heaven and earth; that is our opinion, that he should so be called.”
Wodan, Will and Wih slew Ymir; and all the giants were drowned in the icy blood that flowed from his veins except for one called Bergelmir, who escaped with his wife on a raft. Then the gods made the earth out of Ymir's body, and out of his bones and teeth they made rocks; from his hair they made the trees and from the maggots that crawled through his flesh they made the dwarves. They shaped his blood into a ring around the world, which is the sea; they also lifted up his skull and made the dome of the sky from it, setting the four dwarves East, West, North, and South under the four points. The melted particles and sparks from Muspell-Home they set into the sky and appointed courses for. Thus the earth “is ring-shaped around the edge, and around the outer edge lies the deep sea, and they gave the sea-strands to the kin of etins to settle; but on the inner side they made a fortification against the unfrith of the etins, and this they made with the brows of the etin Ymir, and they called that burg the Middle-Garth.”
This was the point at which the Nine Worlds reached their final shape.
In the first poem of the Poetic Edda,” Völuspá” (“Prophecy of the Völva”), the ancient etin-seeress, recalls her earliest memories of the time “when Ymir lived, when there was neither earth nor heavens over, and no green things anywhere.” The Prose Edda tells us more of the creation of the first things. First there were the icy Niflheimr (“Mist-World,” or Nibel-Home) and the fiery Muspellheimr (Muspell-Home). The venomous rivers which together are called Élivágar sprang from the well Hvergelmir (“Seething Cauldron”), flowing down the side of Nibel-Home where they froze into the layers of a growing glacier. The ice was melted again by the sparks and molten particles that flew from Muspell-Home; and where the rime thawed and dripped, the drops were quickened by the heat and became a manlike figure – Ymir, first of the giants. As the etin Vafthrúdhnir tells Wodan in “Vafthrúdhnismál,” “From Élivágar frothed venom-drops / and waxed til there was an etin. / From his aett are all (etins) come / thus are they terrible all” (st. 31). As Ymir slept, he sweated; male and female rime-thurses came forth from under his arm, and one of his legs fathered a six-headed son on the other.
From the dripping of the ice also came the ur-cow (“protocow”) Audhumbla on whose milk the ancient rime-thurse fed; but Audhumbla licked the rim of the ice-stones which were salty, and under the licking of her tongue came forth the shape of a man who was fair and mighty, the first of the race of gods. He was named Buri he got a son named Bor, who married an etin-maid called Bestla, the daughter of the giant Bolthorn. Bolthorn also had a son from whom Wodan learned much wisdom; it is thought that this son, Wodan's uncle, is Mímir, keeper of the Well of Memory, because Mímir acts in the traditional role of mother's-brother to Wodan, teaching him the wisdom of his etin-forebears. It is said that Bor and Bestla had three sons, Wodan or Odin, Will or Villi, and Wih or Ve, (“Holiness”); but Will and Holiness are clearly hypostases of Wodan/Odin himself, as Snorri Sturluson implies in the Prose Edda when he has the Wodanic triplicity “High, Just-as-High, and Third” tell Gylfi: “And that is my troth, that this Wodan and his brothers must be the rulers of heaven and earth; that is our opinion, that he should so be called.”
Wodan, Will and Wih slew Ymir; and all the giants were drowned in the icy blood that flowed from his veins except for one called Bergelmir, who escaped with his wife on a raft. Then the gods made the earth out of Ymir's body, and out of his bones and teeth they made rocks; from his hair they made the trees and from the maggots that crawled through his flesh they made the dwarves. They shaped his blood into a ring around the world, which is the sea; they also lifted up his skull and made the dome of the sky from it, setting the four dwarves East, West, North, and South under the four points. The melted particles and sparks from Muspell-Home they set into the sky and appointed courses for. Thus the earth “is ring-shaped around the edge, and around the outer edge lies the deep sea, and they gave the sea-strands to the kin of etins to settle; but on the inner side they made a fortification against the unfrith of the etins, and this they made with the brows of the etin Ymir, and they called that burg the Middle-Garth.”
This was the point at which the Nine Worlds reached their final shape.
Nine Worlds cosmology.
The drawing shows the worlds on the vertical plane. The Ases' Garth is above; Light Alf-Home is in the upper reaches of the Middle-Garth's air. The four elemental worlds, Etin-Home (ON Jötunheimr – air), Muspell-Home (fire), Wan-Home (water), and Nibel-Home (ON Niflheimr – “World of Misty Darkness”; ice) should be understood to be on the same level as the Middle-Garth. Etin-Home is to the East, Muspell-Home to the South, Wan-Home to the West, and Nibel-Home to the North. Nibel-Home is, however, canted downward and should properly be seen as lying in the level of the Underworld; in some accounts, it is the lowest part of Hella's realm. Swart Alf-Home is in the depths of our earth, and Hella's realm is below. The heavenly god/esses (Ases; ON Æsir) dwell in the Ases' Garth, Light Alfs (elves) in Light Alf-Home; etins, rises, and thurses (types of giants; see chapter 6) dwell in Etin-Home; the god /esses of earth and water (Wans; ON Vanir) dwell in Wan-Home; Muspell-Home is inhabited by the Muspilli, who may be a sort of fire-giant; the dwarves or Swart Alfs dwell in Swart Alf-Home and the dead in Hella's realm and Nibel-Home. Eastward in Etin-Home is a forest called the Iron-Wood: there dwell a number of giantesses and troll- wives. One in particular, the Hag of Iron-Wood, is the mother of the two wolves who chase the Sun and her brother the Moon; this thurse-frowe (giant woman) may be Angrboda, the concubine of Loki, who also bore the Wolf Fenrir and the Middle-Garth's Wyrm to him.
The second drawing shows the worlds on the vertical plane. The Ases' Garth is above; Light Alf-Home is in the upper reaches of the Middle-Garth's air. The four elemental worlds, Etin-Home (ON Jötunheimr – air), Muspell-Home (fire), Wan-Home (water), and Nibel-Home (ON Niflheimr – “World of Misty Darkness”; ice) should be understood to be on the same level as the Middle-Garth. Etin-Home is to the East, Muspell-Home to the South, Wan-Home to the West, and Nibel-Home to the North. Nibel-Home is, however, canted downward and should properly be seen as lying in the level of the Underworld; in some accounts, it is the lowest part of Hella's realm. Swart Alf-Home is in the depths of our earth, and Hella's realm is below. The heavenly god/esses (Ases; ON Æsir) dwell in the Ases' Garth, Light Alfs (elves) in Light Alf-Home; etins, rises, and thurses (types of giants) dwell in Etin-Home or Jotunheim; the god /esses of earth and water (Wans; ON Vanir) dwell in Wan-Home or Vanaheim; Muspell-Home or Muspellheim is inhabited by the Muspilli, who may be a sort of fire-giant; the dwarves or Swart Alfs dwell in Swart Alf-Home or Svartalfheim and the dead in Hella's realm and Nibel-Home. Eastward in Etin-Home is a forest called the Iron-Wood: there dwell a number of giantesses and troll- wives. One in particular, the Hag of Iron-Wood, is the mother of the two wolves who chase the Sun and her brother the Moon; this thurse-frowe (giant woman) may be Angrboda, the concubine of Loki, who also bore the Wolf Fenrir and the Middle-Garth's Wyrm to him.
The Outgarth, the realm outside the Middle-Garth's bounds, is the realm of wild power – of magic, the supernatural, and the unknown. It is also the world of the dead – Hella's world and Swart Alf-Home, although they are shown below the Middle-Garth upon the straight vertical axis, are thought of as lying outside the garth. The realm within, which encompasses the Ases' Garth, the Middle-Garth, and Light Alf-Home, is the world of things social, stable, and ordered. Most of the time, the purpose of Teutonic religion is to strengthen the garth and to bring the three worlds within it closer to one another – to enhance, not necessarily the artificial (and sometimes arbitrary) laws of an existing society, but the natural laws by which humans, the earth, and the gods and wights work together in kinship and frith (fruitful peace and happiness).
The second drawing shows the worlds on the vertical plane. The Ases' Garth is above; Light Alf-Home is in the upper reaches of the Middle-Garth's air. The four elemental worlds, Etin-Home (ON Jötunheimr – air), Muspell-Home (fire), Wan-Home (water), and Nibel-Home (ON Niflheimr – “World of Misty Darkness”; ice) should be understood to be on the same level as the Middle-Garth. Etin-Home is to the East, Muspell-Home to the South, Wan-Home to the West, and Nibel-Home to the North. Nibel-Home is, however, canted downward and should properly be seen as lying in the level of the Underworld; in some accounts, it is the lowest part of Hella's realm. Swart Alf-Home is in the depths of our earth, and Hella's realm is below. The heavenly god/esses (Ases; ON Æsir) dwell in the Ases' Garth, Light Alfs (elves) in Light Alf-Home; etins, rises, and thurses (types of giants) dwell in Etin-Home or Jotunheim; the god /esses of earth and water (Wans; ON Vanir) dwell in Wan-Home or Vanaheim; Muspell-Home or Muspellheim is inhabited by the Muspilli, who may be a sort of fire-giant; the dwarves or Swart Alfs dwell in Swart Alf-Home or Svartalfheim and the dead in Hella's realm and Nibel-Home. Eastward in Etin-Home is a forest called the Iron-Wood: there dwell a number of giantesses and troll- wives. One in particular, the Hag of Iron-Wood, is the mother of the two wolves who chase the Sun and her brother the Moon; this thurse-frowe (giant woman) may be Angrboda, the concubine of Loki, who also bore the Wolf Fenrir and the Middle-Garth's Wyrm to him.
The Outgarth, the realm outside the Middle-Garth's bounds, is the realm of wild power – of magic, the supernatural, and the unknown. It is also the world of the dead – Hella's world and Swart Alf-Home, although they are shown below the Middle-Garth upon the straight vertical axis, are thought of as lying outside the garth. The realm within, which encompasses the Ases' Garth, the Middle-Garth, and Light Alf-Home, is the world of things social, stable, and ordered. Most of the time, the purpose of Teutonic religion is to strengthen the garth and to bring the three worlds within it closer to one another – to enhance, not necessarily the artificial (and sometimes arbitrary) laws of an existing society, but the natural laws by which humans, the earth, and the gods and wights work together in kinship and frith (fruitful peace and happiness).
(Excerpt from the Asatru book Teutonic Religion by Kveldulf Gundarsson. Used with permission. To purchase an entire e-copy of the book Teutonic Religion click on the link.)