Seiðr Loom

frost-giant

Bergelmir

A primeval frost-giant. Vafþrúðnismál remembers him laid in a boat before the earth was made; Snorri makes him the one giant who escaped the flood of Ymir's blood.

Bergelmir is the oldest giant anyone remembers. In Vafþrúðnismál, Odin asks the giant Vafþrúðnir what he remembers from furthest back. The answer: Bergelmir's birth, "winters unmeasured ere earth was made", and the moment "when the giant wise in a boat of old was borne" Vafþrúðnismál 35. Earlier in the same contest Vafþrúðnir gives his pedigree: son of Þrúðgelmir, grandson of Aurgelmir Vafþrúðnismál 29.

Snorri's flood

Snorri Sturluson quotes that stanza in Gylfaginning and builds a story around it. When the sons of Borr killed Ymir, so much blood flowed that it drowned the whole race of frost-giants. Only Bergelmir escaped: "he went upon his ship, and his wife with him", and from the couple all later giants descend Gylfaginning 7. Snorri identifies Aurgelmir with Ymir Gylfaginning 5, which makes Bergelmir Ymir's grandson.

The poem says nothing about a flood. It mentions only that Bergelmir was "in a boat" (or on something similar; the Old Norse word is unclear). Some scholars think Snorri knew a fuller tradition; others suspect he read the flood into the verse, possibly influenced by the biblical story of Noah. Either way, the image of the gods' first killing nearly ending the giant race, with one couple surviving to restart it, belongs to Snorri's account (see The making of the world).

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.

Winters unmeasured ere earth was made Was the birth of Bergelmir; Thruthgelmir's son was the giant strong, And Aurgelmir's grandson of old.
Vafþrúðnismál 29 Bergelmir's place in the oldest giant family: grandson of Aurgelmir.
This first knew I well, when the giant wise In a boat of old was borne.
Vafþrúðnismál 35 Vafþrúðnir's earliest memory is of Bergelmir being laid in a boat.
save that one, whom giants call Bergelmir, escaped with his household; he went upon his ship, and his wife with him
Gylfaginning 7 Snorri turns the boat into a refuge from the flood of Ymir's blood, making Bergelmir the ancestor of the later giants.

Where the sources disagree or fall silent

  • The word Bellows translates 'boat' (Old Norse lúðr) is obscure; it has also been read as a cradle, a coffin or part of a mill. Whether the poem knew a flood story at all, or whether Snorri built one from this stanza, is debated.

Myths with Bergelmir

Odin's contest of wisdom with Vafþrúðnir Against Frigg's advice, Odin goes in disguise to the wisest of the giants and stakes his head on a contest of questions about the creation, the gods and the end of the world. He wins with a question only he can answer. The making of the world Before anything existed there was only a yawning gap. Fire and ice met in it, the giant Ymir woke out of the melting rime, and Odin and his brothers killed him and built the world from his body.

Related

Ymir The first being, a giant who woke in the melting rime of the primeval void. Odin and his brothers killed him and built the world from his body. Þrúðgelmir A primeval frost-giant named once in Vafþrúðnismál: son of Aurgelmir and father of Bergelmir, in the generation between the first giant and the survivor of the flood. Vafþrúðnir The all-knowing giant whom Odin, disguised as Gagnráðr, challenges to a contest of wisdom with their heads at stake. He loses to a question only Odin could answer. The giants (jötnar) jötnar The giants of Norse myth: the oldest race in the world, descended from Ymir, wise and often wealthy, enemies of the gods yet their kin, their wives and their mothers.