The oldest stories of every race of people tell about the Beginning
of Things. But the various folk who first told them were so very
different, the tales are so very old, and have changed so greatly in
the telling from one generation to another, that there are almost as
many accounts of the way in which the world began as there are nations
upon the earth. So it is not strange that the people of the North have
a legend of the Beginning quite different from that of the Southern,
Eastern, and Western folk.
This book is made of the stories told by the Northern folk,--the
people who live in the land of the midnight sun, where summer is green
and pleasant, but winter is a terrible time of cold and gloom; where
rocky mountains tower like huge giants, over whose heads the thunder
rolls and crashes, and under whose feet are mines of precious metals.
Therefore you will find the tales full of giants and dwarfs,--spirits
of the cold mountains and dark caverns.
You will find the hero to be Thor, with his thunderbolt hammer, who
dwells in the happy heaven of Asgard, where All-Father Odin is king,
and where Balder the beautiful makes springtime with his smile. In the
north countries, winter, cold, and frost are very real and terrible
enemies; while spring, sunshine, and warmth are near and dear friends.
So the story of the Beginning of Things is a story of cold and heat, of
the wicked giants who loved the cold, and of the good Æsir, who basked
in pleasant warmth.
In the very beginning of things, the stories say, there were two
worlds, one of burning heat and one of icy cold. The cold world was
in the north, and from it flowed Elivâgar, a river of poisonous water
which hardened into ice and piled up into great mountains, filling the
space which had no bottom. The other world in the south was on fire
with bright flame, a place of heat most terrible. And in those days
through all space there was nothing beside these two worlds of heat
and cold.
But then began a fierce combat. Heat and cold met and strove to destroy
each other, as they have tried to do ever since. Flaming sparks from
the hot world fell upon the ice river which flowed from the place of
cold. And though the bright sparks were quenched, in dying they wrought
mischief, as they do to-day; for they melted the ice, which dripped
and dripped, like tears from the suffering world of cold. And then,
wonderful to say, these chilly drops became alive; became a huge,
breathing mass, a Frost-Giant with a wicked heart of ice. And he was
the ancestor of all the giants who came afterwards, a bad and cruel
race.
At that time there was no earth nor sea nor heaven, nothing but the icy
abyss without bottom, whence Ymir the giant had sprung. And there he
lived, nourished by the milk of a cow which the heat had formed. Now
the cow had nothing for her food but the snow and ice of Elivâgar, and
that was cold victuals indeed! One day she was licking the icy rocks,
which tasted salty to her, when Ymir noticed that the mass was taking
a strange shape. The more the cow licked it, the plainer became the
outline of the shape. And when evening came Ymir saw thrusting itself
through the icy rock a head of hair. The next day the cow went on with
her meal, and at night-time a man's head appeared above the rock. On
the third day the cow licked away the ice until forth stepped a man,
tall and powerful and handsome. This was no evil giant, for he was
good; and, strangely, though he came from the ice his heart was warm.
He was the ancestor of the kind Æsir; for All-Father Odin and his
brothers Vili and Ve, the first of the gods, were his grandsons, and as
soon as they were born they became the enemies of the race of giants.
Now after a few giant years,--ages and ages of time as we reckon
it,--there was a great battle, for Odin and his brothers wished to
destroy all the evil in the world and to leave only good. They attacked
the wicked giant Ymir, first of all his race, and after hard fighting
slew him. Ymir was so huge that when he died a mighty river of blood
flowed from the wounds which Odin had given him; a stream so large
that it flooded all space, and the frost-giants, his children and
grandchildren, were drowned, except one who escaped with his wife in a
chest. And but for the saving of these two, that would have been the
end of the race of giants.
All-Father and his brothers now had work to do. Painfully they dragged
the great bulk of Ymir into the bottomless space of ice, and from it
they built the earth, the sea, and the heavens. Not an atom of his
body went to waste. His blood made the great ocean, the rivers, lakes,
and springs. His mighty bones became mountains. His teeth and broken
bones made sand and pebbles. From his skull they fashioned the arching
heaven, which they set up over the earth and sea. His brain became the
heavy clouds. His hair sprouted into trees, grass, plants, and flowers.
And last of all, the Æsir set his bristling eyebrows as a high fence
around the earth, to keep the giants away from the race of men whom
they had planned to create for this pleasant globe.
So the earth was made. And next the gods brought light for the heavens.
They caught the sparks and cinders blown from the world of heat, and
set them here and there, above and below, as sun and moon and stars. To
each they gave its name and told what its duties were to be, and how
it must perform them, day after day, and year after year, and century
after century, till the ending of all things; so that the children of
men might reckon time without mistake.
Sôl and Mâni, who drove the bright chariots of the sun and moon across
the sky, were a fair sister and brother whose father named them Sun
and Moon because they were so beautiful. So Odin gave them each a pair
of swift, bright horses to drive, and set them in the sky forever.
Once upon a time,--but that was many, many years later,--Mâni, the
Man in the Moon, stole two children from the earth. Hiuki and Bil
were going to a well to draw a pail of water. The little boy and girl
carried a pole and a bucket across their shoulders, and looked so
pretty that Mâni thrust down a long arm and snatched them up to his
moon. And there they are to this day, as you can see on any moonlight
night,--two little black shadows on the moon's bright face, the boy and
the girl, with the bucket between them.
The gods also made Day and Night. Day was fair, bright, and beautiful,
for he was of the warm-hearted Æsir race. But Night was dark and
gloomy, because she was one of the cold giant-folk. Day and Night had
each a chariot drawn by a swift horse, and each in turn drove about
the world in a twenty-four hours' journey. Night rode first behind her
dark horse, Hrîmfaxi, who scattered dew from his bit upon the sleeping
earth. After her came Day with his beautiful horse, Glad, whose shining
mane shot rays of light through the sky.
All these wonders the kind gods wrought that they might make a pleasant
world for men to call their home. And now the gods, or Æsir as they
were called, must choose a place for their own dwelling, for there
were many of them, a glorious family. Outside of everything, beyond
the great ocean which surrounded the world, was Jotunheim, the cold
country where the giants lived. The green earth was made for men. The
gods therefore decided to build their city above men in the heavens,
where they could watch the doings of their favorites and protect them
from the wicked giants. Asgard was to be their city, and from Asgard
to Midgard, the home of men, stretched a wonderful bridge, a bridge of
many colors. For it was the rainbow that we know and love. Up and down
the rainbow bridge the Æsir could travel to the earth, and thus keep
close to the doings of men.
Next, from the remnants of Ymir's body the gods made the race of little
dwarfs, a wise folk and skillful, but in nature more like the giants
than like the good Æsir; for they were spiteful and often wicked, and
they loved the dark and the cold better than light and warmth. They
lived deep down below the ground in caves and rocky dens, and it was
their business to dig the precious metals and glittering gems that were
hidden in the rocks, and to make wonderful things from the treasures
of the under-world. Pouf! pouf! went their little bellows. Tink-tank!
went their little hammers on their little anvils all day and all
night. Sometimes they were friendly to the giants, and sometimes they
did kindly deeds for the Æsir. But always after men came upon the earth
they hated these new folk who eagerly sought for the gold and the
jewels which the dwarfs kept hidden in the ground. The dwarfs lost no
chance of doing evil to the race of men.
Now the gods were ready for the making of men. They longed to have a
race of creatures whom they could love and protect and bless with all
kinds of pleasures. So Odin, with his brothers Hœnir and Loki, crossed
the rainbow bridge and came down to the earth. They were walking along
the seashore when they found two trees, an ash and an elm. These would
do as well as anything for their purpose. Odin took the two trees and
warmly breathed upon them; and lo! they were alive, a man and a woman.
Hœnir then gently touched their foreheads, and they became wise. Lastly
Loki softly stroked their faces; their skin grew pink with ruddy color,
and they received the gifts of speech, hearing, and sight. Ask and
Embla were their names, and the ash and the elm became the father and
mother of the whole human race whose dwelling was Midgard, under the
eyes of the Æsir who had made them.
This is the story of the Beginning of Things.