{
"post": {
"title": "Was Ymir’s body used to create other realms, or just Midgard?",
"selftext": "I often hear the basic rundowns of Norse Mythology attribute the corpse of Ymir to Midgard’s creation only. But it seems like this idea is based on the notion that Midgard is supposed to represent whole Earth, which was stated to be crafted by Odin and his brothers from the Giant, while the rest of the (unlisted) realms are other worlds entirely. However, I’ve heard that there is an argument to be made that the realms are more akin to regions or continents on the same planet, as the 2 reliable sources we have never went into details on what they are exactly, and used a word that is up for interpretation at that.\n\nSo basically, since Midgard might not be the whole Earth and all the realms might co-exist on the same planet, was Ymir used to create all of them, sans Musppleheim and Nilfheim ? \n\nIf there’s a passage that directly contradict my proposals, pls let me know.",
"url": "https://www.reddit.com/r/norsemythology/comments/18grla4/was_ymirs_body_used_to_create_other_realms_or/"
},
"comments": [
{
"body": "> used a word that is up for interpretation\n\nThe word is _heimr_ (plural _heimar_) which descends from the same origin as English _home_. And that’s literally what it means. The trick is that whereas modern English has a bunch of extra words it has borrowed from other languages that it can use to refer to different types of homes, Old Norse didn’t. So for example, in Old Norse you don’t say “the country of Italy”, you say “Italian-home”. And you don’t say “planet Krypton”, you say “Kryptonian-home”. And you don’t say “underworld”, you say _undirheimr_ (under-home). But you can also say “I want to go back to my home”, meaning your own house. It’s a size-agnostic place of something referring to something as small as your house or as big as a universe and everything in between.\n\nAccording to the Prose Edda, Niflheimr and Muspelheimr both exist prior to Ymir’s death. Between them there is an empty void. When Ymir dies, his blood creates a sea that fills in the gap between the two and all other lands are created and situated into that sea. The central area is called Miðgarðr and in the center of that, the gods create a city for themselves called Ásgarðr. This whole area is ringed by a sea. On the opposite side of that sea is where the gods created lands for the jötnar to live.\n\nThe Prose Edda account is likely only partially correct, to be fair. It contradicts some earlier poetic sources and makes some weird claims to support its model. Here are some examples from another comment I wrote recently: https://www.reddit.com/r/Norse/comments/18f1av7/comment/kcrp0tz/. But in a general sense it is likely on the right track.\n\nHere are a couple of posts that may help you wrap your head around what our sources actually do and don’t say about the so-called “nine realms”:\n\nhttps://open.substack.com/pub/norsemythology/p/norse-cosmology-part-i-the-nine-realms?r=3362pi&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post\n\nhttps://open.substack.com/pub/norsemythology/p/norse-cosmology-part-ii-the-shape?r=3362pi&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Thanks I’ll give them a read."
},
{
"body": "Gunna have to read this soon too, thanks for the thinks!"
},
{
"body": "That was a good read. I don't know if these were your own articles or not, but greatly appreciate the effort if they were.\n\nSo the main takeaway I had from the articles is that Yggdrasil's branches have no real significance, other than the fact that they're really big, and the roots are the things that actually hold the realms together.\n\nI've also never thought about a flat earth interpretation of Norse Mythology but it sorta makes sense, Muspelheimer and Nilfheimer seems alot bigger than the rest of the lands (as Ymir could live on one of them yet his corpse is sufficient to create everything else), so it would be hard to fit them all on the same globe.\n\nThough, if Yggdrasil doesn't exist in another plane of existence or isn't situated beneath the land of the humans, then how did the people explained away the fact that they couldn't see it ? Is it even a literal tree ?",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Yep I wrote those :)\n\n> Ymir could live on one of them yet his corpse is sufficient to create everything else\n\nTo me this is not necessarily as clear. Its true we are told that the world was created from Ymir’s body, but does this necessarily mean he was the size of a planet or might it be more like the situation where Jesus was able to feed 5,000 people with 5 loaves and 2 fish? The gods being gods, it’s not crazy that they could have derived a planet’s amount of material from the body of a regular sized guy. \n\n> how did the people explain away the fact that they couldn’t see it?\n\nWe might be making it out to be bigger in our minds than it was in the minds of the Norse. Or maybe not. But if I had to guess, I think the simplest answer is probably just that they thought it was too far away to see. After all, if you get far enough away from the mountains, you don’t see them either. Something would have to be absurdly huge to stop conforming to this principle.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Wow, you've gotta release another podcast so you can turn people onto your substack!"
},
{
"body": "On the topic of size inconsistency, that’s a good point actually. It’s just that I can’t recall Ymir having any specific conflicting information about his size, unlike the other giant creatures of the myth (e.g, how Jormangandr was described as being so big that it coils around the Earth and cause the tides but is apparently so rail thin that a bull’s head can still bait the creature, or how Fenrir’s snout can reach the sky but Vioarr and his boots held the wolf’s jaw open). That’s why I just sorta take everything said about him literally.\n\nPerhaps the fact that he can even notice and have a fight with what were essentially 3 bacteria to him is strange. But we don’t know how the battle was fought and how long it went on for."
}
]
}
]
}
]
},
{
"body": "The Eddas tell us that the Aesir created Midgard and it’s human inhabitants. The Eddas don’t say that the Aesir created the other realms or their non-human inhabitants. They describe the creation of familiar features of Midgard, such as mountains, oceans and sky, but they never mention the creation of the vast icy wastes of Jotunheim, the fiery maelstrom of infernal Muspelheim, or the endless grey monotonous squalor of Hel. The Eddas actually tell us specifically that Nilffheim and Muspelheim already existed long before Ymir was even created, so we know that the Aesir could not have created the 9 realms.\n\n​\n\n“the realms are more akin to regions or continents on the same planet”\n\n​\n\nYou only have to think this one through for a moment to realize it can’t be correct. If the realms are locations on one big world, then Niflheim and Muspelheim are also regions on this one big world. But we know that Niflheim and Muspelheim existed long before Ymir was created, and even played a critical part in his creation. How did the world exist for millions or billions (I’m making up numbers) of years before it was created? How could the world that is made of Ymir exist long before Ymir existed (and even play a part in the creation of Ymir)? This would also mean that the Ginnungagap existed right on the surface of an already existing world, which would be weird and self-contradictory.\n\n​\n\nThe Norse myths do contain contradictory information about the nature of it’s universe. The reason for some of the confusion is pretty simple if you know the history of the Indo-European religions. Much of Norse myth comes from the 6500 year old Proto-IndoEuropean civilization. The P.I.E. religion saw the universe as one big disk of land surrounded by infinite ocean. In the center of the land-disk (inside the enclosure) was civilization. If you wandered too far outside the walls, in any direction, you might wander into giant or troll lands. This is the way the P.I.E. worshipers saw their universe. Some of the oldest parts of the Norse mythology reflect this ancient P.I.E.-influenced cosmology.\n\n​\n\nBy the time the Proto-Germanic era rolls around (1000 B.C.), many new non-P.I.E. elements have entered Norse mythology. Odin, Freya, the Runes of Power, The World Tree, the nine worlds, and a whole classic shamanic cosmology are now a part of the myths. By the Proto-Germanic period, Yggrasil holding the nine worlds in its branches is explicitly part of the Norse myth. The existence of the nine worlds is well documented in the Eddas. The Poetic Edda poem Völuspá describes the Nine Worlds surround the tree Yggdrasil:\n\n​\n\n\"I remember yet the giants of yore, Who gave me bread in the days gone by; Nine worlds I knew, the nine in the tree With mighty roots beneath the mold.\n\n​\n\n\"The Prose Edda poem Vafþrúðnismál also explicitly describes 9 worlds, all of which Odin has traveled to and triumphed.\n\n​\n\n\"Of the runes of the gods and the giants' race The truth indeed can I tell, (For to every world have I won;) To nine worlds came I, and to Niflhel beneath, The home where dead men dwell\"\n\n​\n\nThe Prose Edda also confirms the existence of nine worlds when we are informed that Odin charged Hel with accepting the dead from all 9 worlds.\n\n​\n\n\"Hel he threw into Niflheim and gave her authority over nine worlds, such that she has to administer board and lodging to those sent to her, and that is those who die of sickness or old age.\"\n\n​\n\nOne of the first things you learn, when studying the Eddas, is that they assume your knowledge of the myths. They rarely directly instruct you on the nature of the Norse mythological world, the way a textbook would. The fact that the Eddas very clearly tell us that there are nine worlds 3 separate times makes it one of the best attested-to facts in Norse mythology. Starting in the Proto-Germanic period, Norse worshipers envisioned a universe including Odin, The World Tree, and the nine worlds (the “nine in the tree”)."
},
{
"body": "Yes. \n\nThe only two realms in existence prior to Ymir’s death were Niflheimr and Muspelheimr. Therefore once Ymir was killed all other realms in existence were made from his corpse. \n\nThe reason I only said “yes” at the beginning as an answer to your question is because pinning down what a realm is in Norse mythology is not an easy task. There are reasons to believe that some of our named ‘realms’ might actually just be halls, and there are other reasons to believe that the term ‘nine realms’ may in actuality refer to nine afterlife realms rather than actual palaces. Overall it’s quite a confusing system, the way I like to describe the layout of the world actually only splits it between two places, places within the enclosure (Miðgarðr, and Ásgarðr) and places out side the enclosure (Jǫtunnheimar).",
"replies": [
{
"body": ">Muspelheimr\n\nI really think academics should look more at this comparatively. The whole idea of 'Muspel' as paralleled by the old high German Muspilli is really an unsolved mystery. Whether this word and the idea behind it are a Christian invention and import or a fundemental part of pre-christian belief has some not insignificant implications for reconstructing the early Germanic beliefs around the end of the world."
},
{
"body": "Are Muspelheimer and Niflheimer part of the Earth in your interpretation or are they only part of the greater cosmology ?",
"replies": [
{
"body": "They’d be outside the enclosure."
}
]
}
]
},
{
"body": "All realms"
},
{
"body": "They’re places on top of eachother in different dimensions. Not planets tbf",
"replies": [
{
"body": "I don’t think paralleled dimensions were a thing back then, and definitely wasn’t a thing in non-scientific writing.\n\nThe Gods seemed to travel across realms using pretty conventional means. Sure, Thor riding his chariot across the sky isn’t sth you’d see everyday but it isn’t exotic or special compared to taking a flight to Europe for instance.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "I can’t describe it in a non sci-fi way tbh with my words but the realms to me are just layered on top of eachother and the tree holds them in place together. \nThink about in other cultures where if you look through a seeing stone you can see the sidhe or fae, it’s here but not. Don’t think of it as fourth dimensional aliens and tech."
}
]
}
]
}
]
}