There was no sea and no sand, no grass nor rocks, no soil, no trees, no sky, no stars. There was no world, no heaven and no earth, at that time. The gap was nowhere: only an empty place waiting to be filled with life and with existence.
It was time for the creation of everything. Ve and Vili and Odin looked at each other and spoke of what was needful to do, there in the void of Ginnungagap. They spoke of the universe, and of life, and of the future.
Odin and Vili and Ve killed the giant Ymir. It had to be done. There was no other way to make the worlds. This was the beginning of all things, the death that made all life possible.
They stabbed the great giant. Blood gushed out from Ymir’s corpse in unimaginable quantities; fountains of blood as salt as the sea and gray as the oceans gushed out in a flood so sudden, so powerful, and so deep that it swept away and drowned all the giants. (Only one giant, Bergelmir, Ymir’s grandson, and his wife survived, by clambering onto a wooden box, which bore them like a boat. All the giants we see and we fear today are descended from them.)
Odin and his brothers made the soil from Ymir’s flesh. Ymir’s bones they piled up into mountains and cliffs.
Our rocks and pebbles, the sand and gravel you see: these were Ymir’s teeth, and the fragments of bones that were broken and crushed by Odin and Vili and Ve in their battle with Ymir.
The seas that girdle the worlds: these were Ymir’s blood and his sweat.
Look up into the sky: you are looking at the inside of Ymir’s skull. The stars you see at night, the planets, all the comets and the shooting stars, these are the sparks that flew from the fires of Muspell. And the clouds you see by day? These were once Ymir’s brains, and who knows what thoughts they are thinking, even now.
III
The world is a flat disk, and the sea encircles the perimeter. Giants live at the edges of the world, beside the deepest seas.
To keep the giants at bay, Odin and Vili and Ve made a wall from Ymir’s eyelashes and set it around the middle of the world. They called the place within the wall Midgard.
Midgard was empty. The lands were beautiful, but nobody walked the meadows or fished in the clear waters, nobody explored the rocky mountains or stared up at the clouds.
Odin and Vili and Ve knew that a world is not a world until it is inhabited. They wandered high and low, looking for people, and they found nothing. At last, on the rocky shingle at the edge of the sea, they found two logs, sea-tossed, that had floated there on the tides and been cast ashore.
The first log was a log of ash wood. The ash tree is resilient and handsome and its roots go deep. Its wood carves well and will not split or crack. Ash wood makes a good tool handle, or the shaft of a spear.
The second log they found, beside the first on the beach, so close to the first log they were almost touching, was a log of elm wood. The elm tree is graceful, but its wood is hard enough to be made into the toughest planks and beams; you can build a fine home or a hall from elm wood.
The gods took the two logs. They set the logs so they were upright on the sand, the height of people. Odin held them, and one by one he breathed life into them. No longer were they dead logs on a beach: now they were alive.
Vili gave them will; he gave them intelligence and drive. Now they could move, and they could want.
Ve carved the logs. He gave them the shape of people. He carved their ears, that they might hear, and their eyes, that they might see, and lips, that they might speak.
The two logs stood on the beach, two naked people. Ve had carved one with male genitals, the other he had carved female.
The three brothers made clothes for the woman and the man, to cover themselves and to keep them warm, in the chilly sea-spray on the beach at the edge of the world.
Last of all they gave the two people they had made names: the man they called Ask, or Ash Tree; the woman they called Embla, or Elm.
Ask and Embla were the father and the mother of all of us: every human being owes its life to its parents and their parents and their parents before them. Go far enough back, and the ancestors of each of us were Ask and Embla.
Embla and Ask stayed in Midgard, safe behind the wall the gods had made from Ymir’s eyelashes. In Midgard they would make their homes, protected from giants and monsters and all the dangers that wait in the wastes. In Midgard they could raise their children in peace.
That is why Odin is called the all-father. Because he was the father of the gods, and because he breathed the breath of life into our grandparents’ grandparents’ grandparents. Whether we are gods or mortals, Odin is the father of us all.
YGGDRASIL AND THE NINE WORLDS
The ash tree Yggdrasil is a mighty ash tree, the most perfect and beautiful of all trees: also the largest. It grows between the nine worlds and joins them, each to each. It is the biggest of all the trees there are, and the finest. The tops of its branches are above the sky.
It is so large that the roots of the ash are in three worlds, and it is fed by three wells.
The first root, and the deepest, goes into the underworld, to Niflheim, the place that existed before other places. In the center of the dark world is the ever-churning spring, Hvergelmir, so loud it sounds like a roaring kettle. The dragon Nidhogg lives in these waters, and it is always gnawing at the root from below.
The second root goes to the realm of the frost giants, to the well that belongs to Mimir.
There is an eagle who waits at the highest branches of the world-tree and who knows many things, and a hawk, who perches between the eagle’s eyes.
A squirrel, Ratatosk, lives in the branches of the world-tree. It takes gossip and messages from Nidhogg, the dread corpse-eater, to the eagle and back again. The squirrel tells lies to both of them, and takes joy in provoking anger.
There are four stags who graze on the huge branches of the world-tree, devouring the foliage and the bark. There are uncountable snakes at the base of the tree, biting at the roots.
The world-tree can be climbed. It is from this tree that Odin hanged himself in sacrifice, making the world-tree a gallows and himself the gallows god.
The gods do not climb the world-tree. They travel between the worlds using Bifrost, the rainbow bridge. Only the gods can travel on the rainbow; it would burn the feet of any frost giants or trolls who attempted to clamber up it to reach Asgard.
These are the nine worlds:
Asgard, the home of the Aesir. This is where Odin makes his home.
Alfheim, where the light elves live. The light elves are as beautiful as the sun or the stars.
Nidavellir, which is sometimes called Svartalfheim, where the dwarfs (who are also known as dark elves) live beneath the mountains and build their remarkable creations.
Midgard, which is the world of women and men, the world in which we make our home.
Jotunheim, where the frost giants and the mountain giants wander and live and have their halls.
Vanaheim, where the Vanir live. The Aesir and the Vanir are gods, united by peace treaties, and many Vanir gods live in Asgard, with the Aesir.
Niflheim, the dark mist world.
Muspell, the world of flame, where Surtr waits.
And there is the place named after its ruler: Hel, where the dead go who did not die bravely in battle.
The last root of the world-tree goes to a spring in the home of the gods, to Asgard, where the Aesir make their home. Each day the gods hold their council here, and it is here they will gather in the last days of the world, before they set out for the final battle of Ragnarok. It is called the well of Urd.
There are three sisters, the norns, who are wise maidens. They tend the well, and make sure that the roots of Yggdrasil are covered with mud and cared for. The well belongs to Urd; she is fate, and destiny. She is your past. With her are Verdandi—her name means “becoming”—and hers is the present, and Skuld, whose name mean
s “that which is intended,” and her domain is the future.
The norns will decide what happens in your life. There are other norns, not just those three. Giant norns and elf norns, dwarf norns and Vanir norns, good norns and bad, and what your fate will be is decided by them. Some norns give people good lives, and others give us hard lives, or short lives, or twisted lives.
They will shape your fate, there at Urd’s well.
MIMIR’S HEAD AND ODIN’S EYE
In Jotunheim, the home of the giants, is Mimir’s well. It bubbles up from deep in the ground, and it feeds Yggdrasil, the world-tree. Mimir, the wise one, the guardian of memory, knows many things. His well is wisdom, and when the world was young he would drink every morning from the well, by dipping the horn known as the Gjallerhorn into the water and draining it.
Long, long ago, when the worlds were young, Odin put on his long cloak and his hat, and in the guise of a wanderer he traveled through the land of the giants, risking his life to get to Mimir, to seek wisdom.
“One drink from the water of your well, Uncle Mimir,” said Odin. “That is all I ask for.”
Mimir shook his head. Nobody drank from the well but Mimir himself. He said nothing: seldom do those who are silent make mistakes.
“I am your nephew,” said Odin. “My mother, Bestla, was your sister.”
“That is not enough,” said Mimir.
“One drink. With a drink from your well, Mimir, I will be wise. Name your price.”
“Your eye is my price,” said Mimir. “Your eye in the pool.”
Odin did not ask if he was joking. The journey through giant country to get to Mimir’s well had been long and dangerous. Odin had been willing to risk his life to get there. He was willing to do more than that for the wisdom he sought.
Odin’s face was set.
“Give me a knife,” was all he said.
After he had done what was needful, he placed his eye carefully in the pool. It stared up at him through the water. Odin filled the Gjallerhorn with water from Mimir’s pool, and he lifted it to his lips. The water was cold. He drained it down. Wisdom flooded into him. He saw farther and more clearly with his one eye than he ever had with two.
Thereafter Odin was given other names: Blindr, they called him, the blind god, and Hoarr, the one-eyed, and Baleyg, the flaming-eyed one.
Odin’s eye remains in Mimir’s well, preserved by the waters that feed the world ash, seeing nothing, seeing everything.
Time passed. When the war between the Aesir and the Vanir was ending and they were exchanging warriors and chiefs, Odin sent Mimir to the Vanir as an adviser to the Aesir god Hoenir, who would be the new chief of the Vanir.
Hoenir was tall and good-looking, and he looked like a king. When Mimir was with him to advise him, Hoenir also spoke like a king and made wise decisions. But when Mimir was not with him, Hoenir seemed unable to come to a decision, and the Vanir soon tired of this. They took their revenge, not on Hoenir but on Mimir: they cut off Mimir’s head and sent it to Odin.
Odin was not angry. He rubbed Mimir’s head with certain herbs to prevent it from rotting, and he chanted charms and incantations over it, for he did not wish Mimir’s knowledge to be lost. Soon enough Mimir opened his eyes and spoke to him. Mimir’s advice was good, as it was always good.
Odin took Mimir’s head back to the well beneath the world-tree, and he placed it there, beside his eye, in the waters of knowledge of the future and of the past.
Odin gave the Gjallerhorn to Heimdall, watchman of the gods. On the day the Gjallerhorn is blown, it will wake the gods, no matter where they are, no matter how deeply they sleep.
Heimdall will blow the Gjallerhorn only once, at the end of all things, at Ragnarok.
THE TREASURES OF THE GODS
I
Thor’s wife was the beautiful Sif. She was of the Aesir. Thor loved her for herself, and for her blue eyes and her pale skin, her red lips and her smile, and he loved her long, long hair, the color of a field of barley at the end of summer.
Thor woke, and stared at sleeping Sif. He scratched his beard. Then he tapped his wife with a huge hand. “What happened to you?” he asked.
She opened her eyes, the color of the summer sky. “What are you talking about?” she asked, and then she moved her head and looked puzzled. Her fingers reached up to her bare pink scalp and touched it, exploring it tentatively. She looked at Thor, horrified.
“My hair,” was all she said.
Thor nodded. “It’s gone,” he said. “He has left you bald.”
“He?” asked Sif.
Thor said nothing. He strapped on his belt of power, Megingjord, which doubled his enormous strength. “Loki,” he said. “Loki has done this.”
“Why do you say that?” said Sif, touching her bald head frantically, as if the fluttering touch of her fingers would make her hair return.
“Because,” said Thor, “when something goes wrong, the first thing I always think is, it is Loki’s fault. It saves a lot of time.”
Thor found Loki’s door locked, so he pushed through it, leaving it in pieces. He picked Loki up and said only, “Why?”
“Why what?” Loki’s face was the picture of perfect innocence.
“Sif’s hair. My wife’s golden hair. It was so beautiful. Why did you cut it off?”
A hundred expressions chased each other across Loki’s face: cunning and shiftiness, truculence and confusion. Thor shook Loki hard. Loki looked down and did his best to appear ashamed. “It was funny. I was drunk.”
Thor’s brow lowered. “Sif’s hair was her glory. People will think that her head was shaved for punishment. That she did something she should not have done, did it with someone she should not have.”
“Well, yes. There is that,” said Loki. “They will probably think that. And unfortunately, given that I took her hair from the roots, she will go through the rest of her life completely bald . . .”
“No, she won’t.” Thor looked up at Loki, whom he was now holding far above his head, with a face like thunder.
“I am afraid she will. But there are always hats and scarves . . .”
“She won’t go through life bald,” said Thor. “Because, Loki Laufey’s son, if you do not put her hair back right now, I am going to break every single bone in your body. Each and every one of them. And if her hair does not grow properly, I will come back and break every bone in your body again. And again. If I do it every day, I’ll soon get really good at it,” he carried on, sounding slightly more cheerful.
“No!” said Loki. “I can’t put her hair back. It doesn’t work like that.”
“Today,” mused Thor, “it will probably take me about an hour to break every bone in your body. But I bet that with practice I could get it down to about fifteen minutes. It will be interesting to find out.” He started to break his first bone.
“Dwarfs!” shrieked Loki.
“Pardon?”
“Dwarfs! They can make anything. They could make golden hair for Sif, hair that would bond with her scalp and grow normally, perfect golden hair. They could do it. I swear they could.”
“Then,” said Thor, “you had better go and talk to them.” And he dropped Loki from high above his head onto the floor.
Loki clambered to his feet and hurried away before Thor could break any more bones.
He put on his shoes that let him travel through the sky, and he went to Svartalfheim, where the dwarfs have their workshops. The most ingenious craftsmen of them all, he decided, were the three dwarfs known as the sons of Ivaldi.
Loki went to their underground forge. “Hello, sons of Ivaldi. I have asked around, and people here tell me that Brokk and Eitri, his brother, are the greatest dwarf craftsmen there are or have ever been,” said Loki.
“No,” said one of the sons of Ivaldi. “It’s us. We are the greatest craftsmen the
re are.”
“I am assured that Brokk and Eitri can make treasures as good as those you can.”
“Lies!” said the tallest of the sons of Ivaldi. “I wouldn’t trust those fumble-fingered incompetents to shoe a horse.”
The smallest and the wisest of the sons of Ivaldi simply shrugged. “Whatever they make, we could do better.”
“I hear that they’ve challenged you,” said Loki. “Three treasures. The gods of the Aesir will judge who made the best treasure. Oh, and by the way, one of the treasures you make needs to be hair. Ever-growing perfect golden hair.”
“We can do that,” said one of the sons of Ivaldi. Even Loki could barely tell them apart.
Loki went across the mountain to see the dwarf called Brokk, at the workshop he shared with his brother, Eitri. “Ivaldi’s sons are making three treasures as gifts for the gods of Asgard,” said Loki. “The gods are going to judge the treasures. Ivaldi’s sons want me to tell you that they are certain you and your brother Eitri can’t make anything as good as they can. They called you ‘fumble-fingered incompetents.’”
Brokk was no fool. “This smells extremely fishy to me, Loki,” he said. “Are you sure this isn’t your doing? Stirring up trouble between Eitri and me and Ivaldi’s boys seems like the sort of thing you’d do.”
Loki looked as guileless as he could, which was amazingly guileless. “Nothing to do with me,” he said innocently. “I just thought you ought to know.”
“And you have no personal stake in this?” asked Brokk.
“None whatsoever.”
Brokk nodded and looked up at Loki. Brokk’s brother, Eitri, was the great craftsman, but Brokk was the smarter of the two, and the more determined. “Well, then we’ll be happy to take on the sons of Ivaldi in a test of skill, to be judged by the gods. Because I have no doubt that Eitri can forge better and craftier things than Ivaldi’s lot. But let’s make this personal, Loki. Eh?”