Niflheim

Niflheim and the Norse Creation Myth

At the beginning of time in Norse thought, the glacial world of Niflheim stood at one end of the empty vacuum known as Ginnungagap, the “Yawning Void.” As the eons passed, the ices of Niflheim and the flames of Muspelheim encroached on Ginnungagap, meeting somewhere in the middle. When the heat of Muspelheim melted Niflheim's frosts, the vapors coalesced into Ymir, the first giant. The thawing ice also revealed Audumla, a sacred cow who nursed Ymir and fed on the salty blocks of ice.

After some time, Audumla’s insatiable ice-licking uncovered Buri, the first of the Aesir deities and the grandfather of Odin. In his 13th century Gylfaginning, Icelandic scholar Snorri Sturluson recounted Audumla’s role in the creation myth:

‘She licked the ice-blocks, which were salty; and the first day that she licked the blocks, there came forth from the blocks in the evening a man's hair; the second day, a man's head; the third day the whole man was there. He is named Búri: he was fair of feature, great and mighty. He begat a son called Borr, who wedded the woman named Bestla, daughter of Bölthorn the giant; and they had three sons: one was Odin, the second Vili, the third Vé.’^[1]

Buri and his sons eventually slew Ymir, for the giant had become a cruel and greedy monster. After dismembering his body, they filled the emptiness of Ginnungagap with his parts, using them to create the earth, sea, and sky.

Niflheim and Niflhel

The Gylfaginning also explained how Odin came to appoint Hel as the ruler of Niflheim. His account began with a discussion of Loki and the monstrous children he sired with the giantess Angrboda. These children—Fenrir, the giant wolf, and Jörmungandr, the Midgard Serpent— were threats to both the gods and Asgard itself. When Odin learned of Loki’s children, he traveled to Jotunheim to expel them before they became too powerful. It was during this expulsion that Odin cast Hel into Niflheim to rule over the dead:

Hel he cast into Niflheim, and gave to her power over nine worlds, to apportion all abodes among those that were sent to her: that is, men dead of sickness or of old age. She has great possessions there; her walls are exceeding high and her gates great.^[2]