Norse Myth: Creation of Man and Woman

Part 3 of 3 of the Norse creation myth: Odin and his brothers make Ask and Embla, the first man and woman.

After building the world from Ymir’s body, three gods walked along the seashore and found two pieces of driftwood, or two trees, depending on the source. In Völuspá (‘The Prophecy of the Seeress’), a poem of the Poetic Edda, the three gods are Odin, Honir, and Lóðurr. In Snorri Sturluson’s Prose Edda they are Odin and his brothers Vili and Ve. Apart from Odin, these figures are shadowy and rarely appear elsewhere in the myths.

Ask and Embla, the First Man and Woman

These pieces of wood are “Askr” (Ask in most English retellings), the Norse word for ‘ash tree’, and “Embla,” which may mean ‘elm tree’ but is not the usual word used for that tree. “Embla” might also mean ‘water pot’ or “vine,” with the latter meaning having more sexual overtones as the vine could be drilled by the hardwood ash to create fire. Significantly, humans are created from ash wood, the same material that forms Yggdrasil.

The Three Gifts of Life

Völuspá says the gods found Askr and Embla on the shore, “of little might, lacking fate,” without breath, spirit, or warmth. Odin gave them breath, Honir gave them spirit (óðr, the word for inspired mind), and Lóðurr gave them vital warmth and a living color. Snorri’s version is similar: the first god gave breath and life, the second wit and movement, the third a face, speech, hearing, and sight. He doesn’t say which brother gave which gift. From these two, all humankind descends. Later, the god Heimdall, traveling as Rig, would father the three social classes of Norse society.

Ask and Embla, Adam and Eve: Christian Influence?

It’s tempting to compare Askr and Embla with Adam and Eve. Both pairs are the first humans, both are made from raw material (trees found on the shore in one story; earth, and Adam’s rib, in the other), and in both a god gives the breath of life (in Genesis, to Adam). In addition, their names share first letters: Askr and Adam, Embla and Eve.

Are these echoes coincidence or Christian influence? It’s a fair question for Snorri Sturluson, a Christian politician writing around 1220 who knew his Bible. But the core of the story, including the three gifts of life, is already in Völuspá, a poem most scholars date to around the year 1000, the moment Iceland converted. That makes wholesale invention by Snorri unlikely. Some influence from Christian ideas on the poem itself, though, remains possible and much debated.

In the end, everything we have was written down by Christians, and every retelling passed through their hands. As with all Norse myth, it pays to read these stories knowing whose lens we’re looking through. It doesn’t make them any less remarkable.

The Norse creation myth, in three parts: Part 1: Ginnungagap, Ymir, and Auðhumla · Part 2: How Odin Killed the Giant Ymir · Part 3: Creation of Man and Woman (this post)

The scholar Jackson Crawford tells the Norse creation story in this video: