The universe was crafted from the remains of a fallen giant
In short: Long before the Earth existed, a cosmic void held only fire and ice. From their collision, a primordial being emerged, whose very flesh and bone would eventually be carved into the mountains, seas, and sky we inhabit today.
According to the 13th-century Prose Edda, attributed to Snorri Sturluson, the cosmos began in the void of Ginnungagap. This space was caught between the extreme heat of Muspell and the frozen mists of Niflheim. As the heat from the south met the ice from the north, the melting rime formed Ymir, the first jötunn. This primordial being lived in a landscape shaped by the rivers of Niflheim, such as the Hvergelmir, which flowed and froze into thick layers of ice.
The transition from chaos to order was violent. The gods Odin, Vili, and Vé eventually slew Ymir, triggering massive floods of blood that nearly wiped out the jötun race. Using Ymir's corpse, the brothers performed a massive feat of cosmic engineering. They transformed his flesh into the earth, his bones into mountains, and his blood into the vast oceans. Even the sky was fashioned from his skull, held aloft at the four cardinal points by dwarves named Norðri, Suðri, Austri, and Vestri.
This architecture extended to the creation of humanity and the structure of the Nine Worlds. The gods found two trees on a seashore and shaped them into the first humans, Askr and Embla, granting them life, wit, and form. These realms are centered around the world tree, Yggdrasil, whose branches and roots connect various existences. While much of this cosmology describes a linear progression toward Ragnarök—a catastrophic battle and flood—some scholars, such as John Lindow, suggest the underlying belief may have been one of cyclic time, where the cosmos is periodically reborn.
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Sources
- Summary by Intellect · source: Norse cosmology
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