History of the Norse Pantheon

In the oldest days, all existence was merely an abyss between the two poles of freezing Niflheim and burning Muspelheim. Above the two worlds grew the World Ash, Yggdrasil, and below them yawned a chasm between fire and ice. Legend has it there were no living beings in all the multiverse.

At least, not until the two elements met in the Ginnungagap (the abyss), where they combined and created earth and sea, filled with salty ice. The trickle of water grew and formed the giant Ymir and his cow Audhumla. Ymir grew strong on the milk of the cow, and the heat made by Muspelheim in the south caused him to sweat. Those droplets spawned the giants, the beings who would be the eternal foes of the coming gods.

Audhumla, in her turn, grew strong by licking the salt of the ice floes. And one day her tongue brought forth another being from the ice - the giant Buri. Buri then brought forth his son Bor, who married the giantess Bestla (one of Ymir's descendants) and produced three children: Odin, Ve, and Vili. These three new gods knew that only evil could come of letting the giants live, and so they slew Ymir. His blood filled the Ginnungagap, drowning all but two of the giants, who escaped to poster the rest of the race. The giants swore eternal vengeance on the gods for this; thus did the Norse powers create their own worst enemies.

Then Odin and his brothers created the world from Ymir's remains. They took maggots and worms from the giant's corpse, and turned them into elves and fairies, dwarves and trolls. The gods consigned the latter group to Svartalfheim, while the former made their home in Alfheim, halfway between heaven and earth. Afterward, the powers created the realm of Asgard for themselves, and Midgard - the Middle World - for the mortals. All the worlds (including Niflheim and Muspelheim) were connected by the mighty Yggdrasil, which arched over and through everything.

And then came the other gods, the Aesir, created by Odin to populate the paradise the three brothers had created in the heavens. From elsewhere came the Vanir, fellow deities who seemingly rose from nowhere, and the two groups struggled for dominance. Eventually, they declared a stalemate and exchanged hostages to ensure peace between the two pantheons. The Vanir gave up Njord and his children Frey and Freya. The Aesir sent away Hoenir (Odin's brother) and Mimir (a dispenser of wisdom whose ability was so admired that wizards named the magical item after him). Even after he died, Mimir gave excellent advice, and some say that Odin has only one eye because he traded his other to Mimir in exchange for words of wisdom.