Norse Mythology: The Creation of Man

1. Norse Mythology:The Creation of Man From D�Aulaires� Norse Gods and Giants

2. Creation of Man Odin and his brothers, while walking along the seashore, came upon two little trees, and ash and an alder. In these two trees they saw the makings of mankind: straight as gods and tough as wood.

3. Creation of Man But the ash and the alder were only trees; they had no souls, they could neither think nor move, and the sap that flowed beneath their bark was cold. So together the three gods blew life into the trees. Odin gave them souls, Hoenir gave them the will to think and move, and Lodur gave them feeling and warm red blood. Slowly the ash and the alder turned and twisted into a man and a woman.

4. Creation of Man Still, a naked, nameless man is not far above an animal, and the Aesir wanted human beings to be the greatest of all their creations. So they gave them names and loaned them their own cloaks until they could learn to make clothes for themselves. They named the man Ask (Ash) and the woman Embla (Alder) after the trees from which they had been created.

5. Creation of Man

6. Creation of Man As a birth gift they gave them the whole earth for their home, and, to protect them against the onslaughts of the wild jotuns in Jotunheim, they made a fence of Ymir�s eyebrows and placed it around the earth.

7. Creation of Man Then the three gods made a home for themselves high up above the tallest mountains and set up a shimmering rainbow (Bifrost) between earth and Asgard, their home.

8. Creation of Man From Asgard they watched over Ask and Embla and all their children. The first descendants of Ask and Embla were not handsome. Their skin was rough like bark, their joints gnarled. They ate wild plants, hunted animals with clubs, and wrapped themselves in furs to keep out the cold. They lived in hovels, had no manners at all, and their eyes were downcast and dull.

9. Creation of Man

10. Creation of Man Their grandchildren were better in every way. They tilled the soil, lived in houses, sailed the seas. They ate well-baked breads and dressed in shapely clothes, and their shoulders were broad, their cheeks rosy, and their eyes lively.

11. Creation of Man Their great-grandchildren were finer still. They were fair and handsome and sat at leisure in great halls, dressed in fine woolens and snow-white linens. They ate roasts from silver platters and sipped sweet mead from crystal goblets and ornate drinking horns.