es over all his realm, and sways all things great and
small; he smithied heaven and earth, and the lift, and all that belongs
to them; what is most, he made man, and gave him a soul that shall live
and never perish; and all men that are right-minded shall live and be
with himself in Vingolf; but wicked men fare to Hell, and thence into
Niithell, that is beneath in the ninth world. Before the earth ''twas
the morning of time, when yet naught was, nor sand nor sea was
there, nor cooling streams. Earth was not found, nor Heaven above; a
Yawning-gap there was, but grass nowhere.' Many ages ere the earth was
shapen was Niflheim made, but first was that land in the southern sphere
hight Muspell, that burns and blazes, and may not be trodden by those
who are outlandish and have no heritage there. Surtr sits on the border
to guard the land; at the end of the world he will fare forth, and harry
and overcome all the gods and burn the world with fire. Ere the races
were yet mingled, or the folk of men grew, Yawning-gap, which looked
towards the north parts, was filled with thick and heavy ice and
rime, and everywhere within were fog and gusts; but the south side
of Yawning-gap lightened by the sparks and gledes that flew out of
Muspell-heim; as cold arose out of Niflheim and all things grim, so was
that part that looked towards Muspell hot and bright; but Yawning-gap
was as light as windless air, and when the blast of heat met the rime,
so that it melted and dropped and quickened; from those life-drops
there was shaped the likeness of a man, and he was named Ymir; he was
bad, and all his kind; and so it is said, when he slept he fell into a
sweat; then waxed under his left hand a man and a woman, and one of his
feet got a son with the other, and thence cometh the Hrimthursar. The
next thing when the rime dropped was that the cow hight Audhumla was
made of it; but four milk-rivers ran out of her teats, and she fed Ymir;
she licked rime-stones that were salt, and the first day there came at
even, out of the stones, a man's hair, the second day a man's head, the
third day all the man was there. He is named Turi; he was fair of
face, great and mighty; he gat a son named Bor, who took to him Besla,
daughter of Bolthorn, the giant, and they had three sons, Odin, Vili,
and Ve. Bor's sons slew Ymir the giant, but when he fell there ran so
much blood out of his wounds that all the kin of the Hrimthursar were
drowned, save Hvergelmir and his