Norse Mythology: The Creation of Man

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Norse MythologyThe Creation of Man

• From DAulaires Norse Gods and Giants

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Creation of Man

• Odin and his brothers, while walking along the
  seashore, came upon two little trees, and ash and
  an alder.
• In these two trees they saw the makings of
  mankind straight as gods and tough as wood.

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Creation of Man

• But the ash and the alder were only trees they
  had no souls, they could neither think nor move,
  and the sap that flowed beneath their bark was
  cold.
• So together the three gods blew life into the
  trees. Odin gave them souls, Hoenir gave them the
  will to think and move, and Lodur gave them
  feeling and warm red blood.
• Slowly the ash and the alder turned and twisted
  into a man and a woman.

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Creation of Man

• Still, a naked, nameless man is not far above an
  animal, and the Aesir wanted human beings to be
  the greatest of all their creations. So they gave
  them names and loaned them their own cloaks until
  they could learn to make clothes for themselves.
• They named the man Ask (Ash) and the woman Embla
  (Alder) after the trees from which they had been
  created.

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Creation of Man
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Creation of Man

• As a birth gift they gave them the whole earth
  for their home, and, to protect them against the
  onslaughts of the wild jotuns in Jotunheim, they
  made a fence of Ymirs eyebrows and placed it
  around the earth.

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Creation of Man

• Then the three gods made a home for themselves
  high up above the tallest mountains and set up a
  shimmering rainbow (Bifrost) between earth and
  Asgard, their home.

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Creation of Man

• From Asgard they watched over Ask and Embla and
  all their children.
• The first descendants of Ask and Embla were not
  handsome. Their skin was rough like bark, their
  joints gnarled. They ate wild plants, hunted
  animals with clubs, and wrapped themselves in
  furs to keep out the cold. They lived in hovels,
  had no manners at all, and their eyes were
  downcast and dull.

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Creation of Man
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Creation of Man

• Their grandchildren were better in every way.
  They tilled the soil, lived in houses, sailed the
  seas. They ate well-baked breads and dressed in
  shapely clothes, and their shoulders were broad,
  their cheeks rosy, and their eyes lively.

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Creation of Man

• Their great-grandchildren were finer still. They
  were fair and handsome and sat at leisure in
  great halls, dressed in fine woolens and
  snow-white linens. They ate roasts from silver
  platters and sipped sweet mead from crystal
  goblets and ornate drinking horns.