@yopossum reporting for Silva duty 🫡
boy, do i have a good matchup for you, dear possum! thank you for your participation <3
behold, silva/ymir
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Pronounced as EE-mir, translates to “Screamer”. The first being in Norse existence and the first Jotun. It’s said that that Ymir was born when fire from Muspelheim and ice from Niflheim met in the abyss of Ginnungagap. Think of it like the Norse version of the “big bang”. Ymir is an intersex Jotun and was suckled the cow Audhumla for his nourishment. While he slept, several other Jotun were conceived asexually by Ymir, and spontaneously sprang from between his legs and the sweat from his armpits.
Audhumla received her nourishment from a salt lick and a being named Buri, the first of the Aesir gods, was free from within. He produced a son, Borr, who mated with Bestla, one of Ymir’s descendants, and thus Odin and his two brothers, Vili and Vis, were born. The brothers slew Ymir and created the cosmos from his corpse. As one of the poems in the Poetic Edda words it:
From Ymir’s flesh, the earth was created, And from his sweat (in some versions, this is “blood”) the sea, Mountains from bone, Trees from hair, And from his skull, the sky. And from his eyebrows the blithe gods made Midgard, home of the sons of men, And from his brains They sculpted the grim clouds.
Thematically, Ymir represents the personification of the chaos before creation, which is also depicted as the impersonal void of Ginnungagap. Both Ymir and Ginnungagap are ways of talking about limitless potential that isn’t actualized, that hasn’t yet become the particular things that we find in the world around us. This is why the vikings described it as a void. It is quite literally “nothingness”.
But it contains what the Gods needed to create. In this case, the primal matter is Ymir’s body, which the gods tear apart to craft the elements.
Ymir is arguably one of the more important figures in the myths since his being creates everything around us.
Associations/Offerings: Cows. The Earth itself. Fire. Ice.
highly, highly recommend reading more up on him. there's a lot, which is surprising lol
and, your moodboard: