So far I have covered the creation according to Genesis of the Bible, but that, if you didn't already know, is not the only story of creation. Another creation story, one of the first and, in my opinion, more colourful, is the Norse story of the origin of the sky, earth and humanity which was told in the form of an epic poem in Edda.
This story has been paraphrased by Anthony Faulkes from Edda. Edda was compiled sometime in the 12th century from stories and verses, some of which were handed down from when the Norse stories were only told in the spoken form by the Vikings.
In the beginning of time, there was nothing: neither sand, nor sea, nor cool waves. Neither the heaven nor earth existed. Instead, long before the earth was made, Niflheim (Mist World) was made, and in it a spring gave rise to twelve rivers. To the south was Muspell, a region of heat and brightness guarded by Surt, a giant who carried a flaming sword. To the north was frigid Ginnungagap, where the rivers froze and all was ice. Where the sparks and warm winds of Muspell reached the south side of frigid Ginnungagap, the ice thawed and dripped, and from the drips thickened and formed the shape of a man. His name was Ymir, the first of and ancestor of the frost-giants.
This story has started with no mention of a god of any type, instead, as I read it, the Mist World just sort of happened. This is just a paraphrased version but in my mind I see nothing but a cloud, after all it is the Mist world which came from nothing. Then came forth a spring which gave rise to rivers. Sounds to me like an ancient way to explain the big bang and there are no external, supernatural or ethereal forces around to create such a thing, it just happened and from the mist everything else came, including the first man. It's like Genesis without god.
As the ice dripped more, it formed a cow, and from her teats flowed four rivers of milk that fed Ymir. The cow fed on the salt of the rime ice, and as she licked a man's head began to emerge. By the end of the third day of her licking, the whole man had emerged, and his name was Buri. He had a son named Bor, who married Bestla, a daughter of one of the giants. Bor and Bestla had three sons, one of whom was Odin, the most powerful of the gods.
OK, now the story starts to get a little too fantastic and falls apart, but it's about as believable as a god creating the heavens and the earth.
Why a cow? Is it because when we are fist born we feed on milk, perhaps. Is this the first time we read about a sacred cow? Perhaps. This is something I will have to revisit. The plot then seem to follow a weaker and far shorter begatting kind of story when we are first introduced to Odin - the father of the gods. This is the main difference between Genesis and the creation story of Edda, in the Bible god comes whole formed from nowhere and creates everything but in Edda, everything comes from nothing and then the gods are created.
Very interesting - lets continue...
Ymir was a frost-giant, but not a god, and eventually he turned to evil. After a struggle between the giant and the young gods, Bor's three sons killed Ymir. So much blood flowed from his wounds that all the frost-giants were drowned but one, who survived only by builiding an ark for himself and his familly. Bor's sons dragged Ymir's immense body to the center of Ginnungagap, and from him they made the earth. Ymir's blood became the sea, his bones became the rocks and crags, and his hair became the trees. Bor's sons took Ymir's skull and with it made the sky. In it they fixed sparks and molten slag from Muspell to make the stars, and other sparks they set to move in paths just below the sky. They threw Ymir's brains into the sky and made the clouds. The earth is a disk, and they set up Ymir's eyelashes to keep the giants at the edges of that disk.
In one paragraph we so many familiar stories from the fall of Satan to the great flood and the eventual creation of the earth by Bor's sons (themselves gods). Something else we see here is the descrption of the earth as a disc. It's an ancient belief and it's not the only time it has turned up in stories of creation;
Isaiah 40:22"He's the one who sits above the disk of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers. He's the one who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them like a tent to live in"
In Isaiah 40:22 there several description on the earth depending on which version of the bible you read. In most the earth is a circle (not a ball or a sphere). The one version I used was the International Standard Version but in the Contemporary English Version the earth is not described and only in Douay-Rheims version does it describe a globe.
I'm sure the myth of the "flat earth" came from, one can surmise, the fact that without being able to travel great distances the world does in fact seem flat and therefore one could assume like a disc or a circle.
On the sea shore, Bor's sons found two logs and made people out of them. One son gave them breath and life, the second son gave them consciousness and movement, and the third gave them faces, speech, hearing, and sight. From this man and woman came all humans thereafter, just as all the gods were descended from the sons of Bor.
Enter Adam and Eve.
Odin and his brothers had set up the sky and stars, but otherwise they left the heavens unlit. Long afterwards, one of the descendants of those first two people that the brothers created had two children. Those two children were so beautiful that their father named the son Moon and the daughter Sol. The gods were jealous already and, when they heard of the father's arrogance, they pulled the brother and sister up to the sky and set them to work. Sol drives the chariot that carries the sun across the skies, and she drives so fast across the skies of the northland because she is chased by a giant wolf each day. Moon likewise takes a course across the sky each night, but not so swiftly because he is not so harried.
I can only imagine that the earth was only illuminated by the stars so at this time, just like the creation story of Genesis, everything was made in the dark. This verse does attempt to answer the question of why the sun moves at different speeds in different areas, not very well but it has made the attempt.
The gods did leave one pathway from earth to heaven. That is the bridge that appears in the sky as a rainbow, and its perfect arc and brilliant colors are a sign of its origin with the gods. It nonetheless will not last for ever, because it will break when the men of Muspell try to cross it into heaven.
All in all it is a nice little bed time story to explain to young children how everything came to be with a little more finesse than most creation stories. If you think this all sounds a little to hard to swallow, try reading Genesis again.
I write this blog because it is a passion of mine to explore the myth of god and along the way even I learn some cool stuff but it takes a lot of time and energy to write this blog. If you enjoy reading this blog please make a donation by clicking the DONATE button on the right so I can put more time into creating a better blog.
Thank you all
Justin
2 comments:
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Really really helpful :)
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