aurvandil
The Aesir gods created the first man, Ask, by
breathing life into the trunk of an ash tree. (See also
“The First Humans,” under creation).
ask The first man, created from the trunk of an
ash tree by the first three Aesir gods, Odin, Vili, and
Ve. All human beings, it is said in Norse mythology,
are descended from Ask and Embla, the first woman.
(See “The First Humans,” under creation.)
ass In Old Norse, the si ngular form of “god.”
The plural is aesir.
A synjur (A synjer )
The Aesir goddesses, the
female form of the word Aesir. The most prominent
Asynjur was Frigg, wife of Odin, who was goddess of
love, marriage, and motherhood. The 13th-century
chronicler of Norse myths, Snorri Sturluson,
named 20 Asynjur in two separate lists. They are
Bil, Eir, Freya, Frigg, Fulla, Gefjon, Gerda, Gna,
Hlin, Iddun, Lofn, Nanna, Saga (2), Sigyn, Sjofn,
Snotra, Sol, Syn, Var, and Vor. Many of these god-
desses are considered by scholars to be handmaidens
of Frigg.
Snorri does not include among the Asynjur the
more dominant goddesses, Sif, wife of Thor, or
Skade, wife of Njord.
A ud (Wealth)
The son of Nott and her first
husband, Naglfari. Aud’s brother is Dag (day) and
his sister is Jord (earth). Very little is known of
Aud. He is referred to only in the works of Snorri
Sturluson.
A udhumla (A u Ð humla )
The first cow,
formed at the creation of the world. Audhumla
appeared at the same time as Ymir, the first giant,
and fed him with her milk. She herself derived
nourishment by licking the salty stones around
Ginnungagap, the primeval void. As she licked, she
uncovered a handsome, manlike creature from the
ice. He was Buri, the first ancestor of the gods.
In many mythologies the cow is a symbol of the
Great Mother and of creation. Audhumla appears in
the P rose E dda and in the P oetic E dda .
A urgelmir According to the V afthrudnismal ,
a poem in the P oetic E dda , Aurgelmir was the first
and oldest among the giants and the grandfather
of Bergelmir. The poem Vafthrudnismal tells of the
creation of the race of giants.
Audhumla licking Buri as four rivers of milk pour
from her udders. From the 18th-century Icelandic
manuscript SÁM 66, care of the Árni Magnússon
Institute in Iceland
According to Snorri Sturluson, however,
Aurgelmir was the name the rime-giants gave to
Ymir, the first giant from whose body the gods of
the Aesir created the world. Some scholars suggest
that Snorri, as a writer, was attempting to bring some
order to the giants’ lineage as presented in the poems
he used as sources.
aurora borealis Shimmering lights or lumi-
nescence that sometimes appears in night skies in
the Northern Hemisphere. Also called the northern
lights. In Norse mythology this beautiful sight was
said to be the radiance emitted by Gerda, the Jotun
maiden who became the wife of the god Frey.
A urvandil
Known as “The Brave,” he was the
husband of the seer Groa. Not much is known about
Aurvandil except that the god Thor rescued him
from the giants and carried him across the poisonous
rivers of Elivagar in a basket. One of Aurvandil’s
toes froze. Thor plucked it off and threw it into the
sky, where it shone forevermore as the bright star