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Gangleri spoke: ‘What was the beginning? And how did things
start? And what was there before?’

High replied: ‘As it says in Voluspa:

It was at the beginning of time, when nothing was; sand was
not, nor sea, nor cool waves. Earth did not exist, nor heaven
on high. The mighty gap was, but no growth.’

Then spoke Just-as-high: ‘It was many ages before the earth
was created that Niflheim was made, and in its midst lies a spring
called Hvergelmir, and from it flow the rivers called Svol, Gunnthra,
Fiorm, Fimbulthul, Slidr and Hrid, Sylg and Ylg, Vid, Leiptr;
Gioll is next to Hel-gates.’

Then spoke Third: ‘But first there was the world in the southern
region called Muspell. It is bright and hot. That area is flaming
and burning and it is impassable for those that are foreigners there
and are not native to it. There is one called Surt that is stationed
there at the frontier to defend the land. He has a flaming sword
and at the end of the world he will go and wage war and defeat all
the gods and burn the whole world with fire. Thus it says in
Voluspa:

Surt travels from the south with the stick-destroyer [fire].
Shines from his sword the sun of the gods of the slain.
Rock cliffs crash and troll-wives are abroad, heroes tread
the road of Hel and heaven splits.’

Gangleri spoke: ‘What were things like before generations
came to be and the human race was multiplied?’

Then spoke High: ‘These rivers, which are called Elivagar, when
they had got so far from their source that the poisonous flow
that accompanied them began to go hard like the clinker that comes
from a furnace, it turned to ice; and when this ice came to a halt
and stopped flowing, the vapour that was rising from the poison
froze on the top in the same direction and turned to rime, and this
rime increased layer upon layer right across Ginnungagap.’

Then spoke Just-as-high: ‘Ginnungagap, the part that faces in a
northerly direction, was filled with the weight and heaviness of ice
and rime and there was vapour and a blowing inwards from it.
But the southerly part of Ginnungagap cleared up in the face of
the sparks and molten particles that came flying out of the world
of Muspell.’

Then spoke Third: ‘Just as from Niflheim there arose coldness
and all things grim, so what was facing close to Muspell was hot
and bright, but Ginnungagap was as mild as a windless sky. And
when the rime and the blowing of the warmth met so that it
thawed and dripped, there was a quickening from these flowing
drops due to the power of the source of the heat, and it became
the form of a man, and he was given the name Ymir. But the
frost-giants call him Aurgelmir, and from him are descended
the generations of frost-giants, as it says in the Shorter Voluspa:

All sibyls are from Vidolf, all wizards from Vilmeid, all
sorcerers from Svarthofdi, all giants from Ymir come.

And here it is told by the giant Vafthrudnir
where Aurgelmir came from, together with the sons of
giants, first, that wise giant:

“When from Elivagar shot poison drops and grew until from
them came a giant in whom our ancestries all converge: thus
ever too terrible is all this.” ’


- Prose Edda, Gylfaginning