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Norse · Voluspa 3 (Poetic Edda)

Before the world: Ymir and the gap

EvidenceDocumentedThe text exists and is quoted from a published translation. What it describes is a separate question.What this means
ReferenceVoluspa 3 (Poetic Edda)
WrittenPoems c. 900–1100 CE; written down c. 1270
SetBefore creation
Of old was the age when Ymir lived; Sea nor cool waves nor sand there were; Earth had not been, nor heaven above, But a yawning gap, and grass nowhere.

Translation: Bellows, 1923 · About the translator

Read it literally

The world built out of a giant's body, like Tiamat. The gods are younger than the giants and descended from them.

What scholars say

The Codex Regius manuscript, Iceland.

Giants and hybrids

Quick answers about Voluspa 3

Where is Voluspa 3 found?

Voluspa 3 (Poetic Edda) (Norse). Translation quoted: Henry Adams Bellows, The Poetic Edda (1923).

When was Voluspa 3 written?

Poems c. 900–1100 CE; written down c. 1270.

What do scholars say about Voluspa 3?

The Codex Regius manuscript, Iceland.

Rabbit holes in this passage

BeingTiamatThe primeval salt sea, mother of the gods, whose split body became the sky and the earth in the Babylonian creation story.BeingYmirThe first giant of Norse myth, born in the void, killed by Odin and his brothers, and butchered to build the world.

Sources

  1. Henry Adams Bellows, The Poetic Edda (1923)Primary text
  2. Enuma Elish, Tablet I, trans. L. W. King, The Seven Tablets of Creation (1902)Primary text
  3. Voluspa 3, Poetic Edda, trans. Henry Adams Bellows (1923)Primary text

Scholarly dates are rounded. The wording follows the named public-domain translation.

Updated