ms of milk, and
with this his craving was easily stilled.

But the cow was hungry also, and began to lick the salt off the blocks
of ice by which she was surrounded. And presently, as she went on
licking with her strong, rough tongue, a head of hair pushed itself
through the melting ice. Still the cow went on licking, until she had
at last melted all the icy covering and there stood fully revealed the
frame of a mighty man.

Ymir looked with eyes of hatred at this being, born of snow and ice,
for somehow he knew that his heart was warm and kind, and that he and
his sons would always be the enemies of the evil race of the Frost
Giants.

So, indeed, it came to pass. For from the sons of Ymir came a race of
giants whose pleasure was to work evil on the earth; and from the Sons
of the Iceman sprang the race of the gods, chief of whom was Odin,
Father of All Things that ever were made; and Odin and his brothers
began at once to war against the wicked Frost Giants, and most of all
against the cold-hearted Ymir, whom in the end they slew.

Now when, after a hard fight, the Giant Ymir was slain, such a river
of blood flowed forth from his wounds that it drowned all the rest of
the Frost Giants save one, who escaped in a boat, with only his wife
on board, and sailed away to the edge of the world. And from him
sprang all the new race of Frost Giants, who at every opportunity
issued from their land of twilight and desolation to harm the gods in
their abode of bliss.

Now when the giants had been thus driven out, All-Father Odin set to
work with his brothers to make the earth, the sea, and the sky; and
these they fashioned out of the great body of the Giant Ymir.

Out of his flesh they formed Midgard, the earth, which lay in the
centre of the gulf; and all round it they planted his eyebrows to make
a high fence which should defend it from the race of giants.

With his bones they made the lofty hills, with his teeth the cliffs,
and his thick curly hair took root and became trees, bushes, and the
green grass.

With his blood they made the ocean, and his great skull, poised aloft,
became the arching sky. Just below this they scattered his brains, and
made of them the heavy grey clouds that lie between earth and heaven.

The sky itself was held in place by four strong dwarfs, who support it
on their broad shoulders as they stand east and west and south and
north.

The next thing was to give light to the new-made world. So