being
Ask and Embla
Askr ok Embla
The first man and woman, made by three gods from two pieces of wood found on the shore. All humankind descends from them.
Ask and Embla are the first humans. The two accounts of their making agree on the outline: three gods, two lifeless figures found by the sea or on the land, and a set of gifts that turned them into people. They disagree on who the gods were.
Völuspá
In Völuspá, after the dwarfs are made, three "mighty and gracious" gods come from their home and find two beings "without fate on the land": Ask and Embla, "empty of might" Völuspá 17. They lack everything that makes a living person.
Soul they had not, sense they had not,Heat nor motion, nor goodly hue;Soul gave Othin, sense gave Hönir,Heat gave Lothur and goodly hue.Völuspá 18
Odin gives breath or spirit, Hœnir sense, and Lóðurr warmth and colour. The exact meaning of each Old Norse word is debated, and translators render them differently.
Snorri's version
In Gylfaginning the three are "the sons of Borr", that is Odin and his brothers Vili and Vé. Walking along the shore, they found two trees and shaped people from them. One gave spirit and life, the second wit and feeling, the third form, speech, hearing and sight. They gave the pair clothes and names, Askr and Embla, "and of them was mankind begotten", living in Midgard Gylfaginning 9.
Neither source tells us anything about the couple after they receive life. They do not speak, act or die in any surviving myth. Their role is to explain where people come from, and to set humans apart from giants and dwarfs, who arose in other ways. A common reading pairs them with Líf and Lífþrasir, the two humans who survive Ragnarök to repeople the world Vafþrúðnismál 45, so that the human race begins and begins again with a couple linked to trees. See also Ask and Embla: the first humans.
In the sources
Quoted from the hosted translations; each line is checked against the text when the site is built. Select a reference to read it in context.
Two without fate on the land they found, Ask and Embla, empty of might.
Soul they had not, sense they had not, Heat nor motion, nor goodly hue; Soul gave Othin, sense gave Hönir, Heat gave Lothur and goodly hue.
When the sons of Borr were walking along the sea-strand, they found two trees, and took up the trees and shaped men of them
the male was called Askr, and the female Embla, and of them was mankind begotten, which received a dwelling-place under Midgard
Where the sources disagree or fall silent
- Who made them: Völuspá names Odin, Hœnir and Lóðurr (Völuspá 18); Snorri says the sons of Borr, Odin, Vili and Vé (Gylfaginning 9). Lóðurr appears nowhere else in the Eddas, and identifications of him with Loki or with Vé are guesses.
- Völuspá does not actually say Ask and Embla were trees: they are found 'on the land', lifeless. Snorri's 'two trees' may be his reading of the names.
