They're ritual structures, why do they have to be dedicated to something? This is the archaic conception: The gods are the initiators and upholders of the cult; they host banquets (ritual drinking feasts were a big part of the Old Germanic religion) and sacrifice cattle; humans imitate these primeval creative acts in ritual. So all human enclosures or sanctuaries on earth imitate the gods first enclosing earth (Middenyard); likewise the sacrifice of animals imitates the original dismembering of Yimer and is thought to uphold the cosmos.
This was a great post. I always enjoy hearing creation myths. Interestingly, there are a few similarities here between the Old Norse-Germanic creation myth and the Chinese creation myth. In the Chinese one, the being Pang'u's bones and body make up the world.
Interesting! I know very very little about anything Chinese, but I agree that it reflects the same motif, if Wikipedia is any accurate. Also interesting to see the Cosmic Egg there. Though the earliest source is apparently from the 3rd century AD, so we could well be looking at Indian influence. Do you know where to read more about it?
For my research on Chinese mythology my main resource was actually The Journey to the West by Wu Cheng’en (Anthony C. Yu translation) which tells the Chinese creation myth story.
One small correction concerning etymology: the name "Ymir" comes from the Proto-Germanic *jumjaz, itself from the PIE word for "twin," reflecting how the dismemberment and refashioning of Ymir's body by Wooden and his brothers reflects an original IE myth where a twin's death at his brother's hands results in the creation of the world. Other figures reflected from this myth include the Sanskrit Yama ("twin"), the Vedic god of Death, and who is also described as the first man to have died, as well as the Roman Remus (altered from from Old Latin *jemos "twin" to alliterate with "Romulus"), whose murder by his twin brother Romulus founds the city of Rome.
As another note, PG *jumjaz would yield *Gyme in Old English, which would become *Yime */'jaɪm/ in Modern Englsih.
I'm not sure about the comparative mythology; unlike Yama Ymir is not the first mortal, he has no twin sister and does not rule the underworld. The purusha I find corresponds more closely to him (though some would disagree). He also doesn't have a twin in the Norse sources. There may be something there but it's a bit too speculative for my tastes, at least when it comes to a post like this which only has as its goal to present the primary sources.
Wow, fascinating. I don't understand what the sources are before Snorri's Poetic Edda...are they distinct physical documents or pieces of the Poetic Edda that were analyzed and determined to be older than other parts of the Poetic Edda? Takk!
You've been confused. The real Edda is the "Prose Edda" or "Snorre's Edda" which was written by Snorre Sturluson in the 13th century and contains lots of information about Norse mythology and poetry; in the Middle Ages it was just known as "the Edda".
Antiquarians in the 17th century speculated, really without any basis, that there were older "Eddas", and when they found a manuscript containing an anthology of archaic poems, they called it "Sæmund's Edda", after the 12th century learned Icelander Sæmund. This was also without basis.
Since later scholars did not want to attribute it to Sæmund, it instead got titles like "the Elder Edda" or "the Poetic Edda."
Today we know that the poems in this collection mostly date to the Wiking Age, or the 9th–11th centuries. Neither Snorre nor Sæmund was their author.
Thanks! I had not heard of Sæmund or the older manuscript of archaic poems - I had read somewhere that the way we knew that some of the content of the Poetic Edda was older was through linguistic style clues.
There are definitely analogies to the Zoroastrian creation myth of mankind (including a divine primordial ox at one point), although that tradition is also adapted to fit with Zoroastrianism's dualistic cosmology (at least as much a dualism of Mind and Reality as one of Good and Evil). It exists at a very interesting equidistant position between an ancient Indo-European core tradition and the Abrahamic religions which it very likely influenced early on.
zoroastrianism is a purposeful variation of an earlier persian faith, similar to how christianity is to judaism; you are correct on it influencing judaism which was also influenced by other beliefs (primarily IE: hittite, greco-roman, zoro, etc)
Always striking that the gods themselves built temples. Temples to whom?
They're ritual structures, why do they have to be dedicated to something? This is the archaic conception: The gods are the initiators and upholders of the cult; they host banquets (ritual drinking feasts were a big part of the Old Germanic religion) and sacrifice cattle; humans imitate these primeval creative acts in ritual. So all human enclosures or sanctuaries on earth imitate the gods first enclosing earth (Middenyard); likewise the sacrifice of animals imitates the original dismembering of Yimer and is thought to uphold the cosmos.
This was a great post. I always enjoy hearing creation myths. Interestingly, there are a few similarities here between the Old Norse-Germanic creation myth and the Chinese creation myth. In the Chinese one, the being Pang'u's bones and body make up the world.
Interesting! I know very very little about anything Chinese, but I agree that it reflects the same motif, if Wikipedia is any accurate. Also interesting to see the Cosmic Egg there. Though the earliest source is apparently from the 3rd century AD, so we could well be looking at Indian influence. Do you know where to read more about it?
For my research on Chinese mythology my main resource was actually The Journey to the West by Wu Cheng’en (Anthony C. Yu translation) which tells the Chinese creation myth story.
One small correction concerning etymology: the name "Ymir" comes from the Proto-Germanic *jumjaz, itself from the PIE word for "twin," reflecting how the dismemberment and refashioning of Ymir's body by Wooden and his brothers reflects an original IE myth where a twin's death at his brother's hands results in the creation of the world. Other figures reflected from this myth include the Sanskrit Yama ("twin"), the Vedic god of Death, and who is also described as the first man to have died, as well as the Roman Remus (altered from from Old Latin *jemos "twin" to alliterate with "Romulus"), whose murder by his twin brother Romulus founds the city of Rome.
As another note, PG *jumjaz would yield *Gyme in Old English, which would become *Yime */'jaɪm/ in Modern Englsih.
Thank you. I am aware of this etymology, but there are other proposals like "screamer" (https://www.academia.edu/8766740/In_the_beginning_was_the_Scream_Conceptual_thought_in_the_Old_Norse_myth_of_creation). Ymir is also weird since the -ir after the short vowel is irregular; we'd expect *Ymr due to Sievers' law. But it conforms to a pattern of other ettin-names like Gymir, Skrymir and Hymir.
I'm not sure about the comparative mythology; unlike Yama Ymir is not the first mortal, he has no twin sister and does not rule the underworld. The purusha I find corresponds more closely to him (though some would disagree). He also doesn't have a twin in the Norse sources. There may be something there but it's a bit too speculative for my tastes, at least when it comes to a post like this which only has as its goal to present the primary sources.
Wow, fascinating. I don't understand what the sources are before Snorri's Poetic Edda...are they distinct physical documents or pieces of the Poetic Edda that were analyzed and determined to be older than other parts of the Poetic Edda? Takk!
You've been confused. The real Edda is the "Prose Edda" or "Snorre's Edda" which was written by Snorre Sturluson in the 13th century and contains lots of information about Norse mythology and poetry; in the Middle Ages it was just known as "the Edda".
Antiquarians in the 17th century speculated, really without any basis, that there were older "Eddas", and when they found a manuscript containing an anthology of archaic poems, they called it "Sæmund's Edda", after the 12th century learned Icelander Sæmund. This was also without basis.
Since later scholars did not want to attribute it to Sæmund, it instead got titles like "the Elder Edda" or "the Poetic Edda."
Today we know that the poems in this collection mostly date to the Wiking Age, or the 9th–11th centuries. Neither Snorre nor Sæmund was their author.
Thanks! I had not heard of Sæmund or the older manuscript of archaic poems - I had read somewhere that the way we knew that some of the content of the Poetic Edda was older was through linguistic style clues.
There are definitely analogies to the Zoroastrian creation myth of mankind (including a divine primordial ox at one point), although that tradition is also adapted to fit with Zoroastrianism's dualistic cosmology (at least as much a dualism of Mind and Reality as one of Good and Evil). It exists at a very interesting equidistant position between an ancient Indo-European core tradition and the Abrahamic religions which it very likely influenced early on.
zoroastrianism is a purposeful variation of an earlier persian faith, similar to how christianity is to judaism; you are correct on it influencing judaism which was also influenced by other beliefs (primarily IE: hittite, greco-roman, zoro, etc)
fascinating! I wonder if you ever do a post on the Muspilli of the Dietrich Von Barn cycle?
Are you referring to the poem Muspilli?