Ymir

Auðhumla feeds Ymir and licks Búri free; painting by Nicolai Abraham Abildgaard, 1790

The giant Ymir' (Old Norse Ýmir "twin, hermaphrodite") is the oldest living being in Norse mythology and corresponds to the Adam Kadmon of Hebrew tradition, the Pangu of Chinese mythology, the Gayomart of Persian mythology or the Purusha of the Indian Vedas. His name is considered very old and is linguistically related to the ancient Indian death god Yama and the ancient Persian Yima. Another giant of the Norse primeval times named Aurgelmir is often equated with Ymir.

He was a bisexual primordial giant with six heads. He was formed from the mixing of the glacial ice of Niflheim and the fire of Muspelheim. He fed on the milk of the primordial cow Audhumla.

When he had drunk from the milk of the primordial cow, he fell asleep. He did not notice that the sword of the fire giant Surtr struck next to him. As it was very hot, Thrudgelmir arose from his sweat. This was a six-headed giant.

The first gods, Odin, Vili and Vé killed him and built the world from his body parts: from his flesh was made the earth, from his blood the sea, from his teeth stones and rocks, from his hair the trees, from his eyebrows Midgard, from his skull the sky and from his brain the clouds. The four corners of the sky are supported by the dwarves Nordi, Sudri, Austri and Westri.

„The ancient priests spoke to the people in the following way:

Before you were able to see into this world, which is filled with plants and animals, with all the objects that you can now distinguish outside, there was nothing but a dark, yawning space, like an abyss. You see the images in the space. But all that is there now came out of this abyss, out of Ginnungagap, - that is the old Germanic chaos. Now they went on to say: From the north flowed twelve streams, and from the south came the sparks of fire. When the sparks of fire from the south joined with the twelve streams from the north, two beings came into being: the giant Ymir and the cow Audhumbla.

What is the giant Ymir? Ymir is the thinking human being who has arisen, who has formed out of chaos - out of Ginnungagap; and the cow Audhumbla is the new nourishing and the new heart. In the human form are united the giant Ymir and the cow Audhumbla.“ (Lit.:GA 101, p. 22f)

„In the north, I would like to say, a kind of world of mist developed, and the three main initiates whom we have to look for here on this island of humanity, they were called in the time that even reached into the emergence of our Christianity: Wotan, Wili and We. These are the three great Nordic initiates. They derived their origin in a quite regular way, in a popular way one could say from the earthly kingdom, in which everything was still contained, unmixed, which is now distributed among the people. In a popular way, one could say that a race emerged from this earthly kingdom which was very dissimilar to the present human race. This race was dominated by an all-wisdom. This all-wisdom was called "All-Father" by the teaching priests. Then they speak of the two kingdoms, of the misty home and the muslin home. The fog home is the Niflheim of the north, the dawning fog state of the hyperborean root race, in contrast to Muspelheim. Twelve streams are described which dammed up and then turned to ice. From this arose a human race, whose representative was the giant Ymir, and then the animal race, the cow Audhumbla. From Ymir came the sons of the Frost Giants. The humans, who were already intellectually gifted, came into being later, also in the sense of the "secret doctrine". And so the German saga also tells us that [the descendants of Ymir and Audhumbla], Wotan, Wili and We, walked on the beach and formed the people. This refers to those people of the "secret doctrine" who came into being later, and who were gifted with intellect.“ (Lit.:GA 92, p. 39)

Literature

• Folke Ström: Nordisk hedendom. Göteborg 1961.
• Britt-Mari Näsström: Fornskandinavisk religion. En grundbok. Lund 2002.
• Rudolf Steiner: Die okkulten Wahrheiten alter Mythen und Sagen, GA 92 (1999), ISBN 3-7274-0920-7 English: rsarchive.org German: pdf pdf(2) html mobi epub archive.org
• Rudolf Steiner: Mythen und Sagen. Okkulte Zeichen und Symbole, GA 101 (1992), ISBN 3-7274-1010-8 English: rsarchive.org German: pdf pdf(2) html mobi epub archive.org

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