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Élivágar

The icy, venomous rivers of the earliest world: the first giant grew from the venom that dripped from them, and later they mark the far border of the giants' land.

Élivágar are the cold rivers at the beginning of the world. They appear in two kinds of passage: creation, and the road to the giants.

At the creation

In Vafþrúðnismál, Odin asks where the first giant came from. Vafþrúðnir answers that "down from Elivagar did venom drop, and waxed till a giant it was", and that the whole race of giants descends from it, "and thus so fierce are we found" Vafþrúðnismál 31. Snorri turns this into physical detail. The "Ice-waves" flowed so far from their sources that the venom on them hardened like slag and froze, filling the northern part of Ginnungagap with rime. Where the rime met the heat from the south it melted and dripped, and life quickened into Ymir Gylfaginning 5. Snorri quotes Vafþrúðnir's stanza in his own wording to support it Gylfaginning 5.

Down from Elivagar did venom drop,And waxed till a giant it was;And thence arose our giants' race,And thus so fierce are we found.Vafþrúðnismál 31

On the road east

In the later world Élivágar marks a border. In Hymiskviða the giant Hymir lives "to the east of Elivagar … at the end of heaven" Hymiskviða 5. In Snorri's story of Hrungnir, Thor tells how he waded "from the north over Icy Stream" carrying Aurvandill out of Jötunheimr in a basket, and threw Aurvandill's frozen toe into the sky as a star Skáldskaparmál 17. The sources do not say whether the primeval rivers and the boundary river are the same water.

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.

Down from Elivagar did venom drop, And waxed till a giant it was
Vafþrúðnismál 31 Vafþrúðnir tells how the giants began.
The streams called Ice-waves, those which were so long come from the fountain-heads that the yeasty venom upon them had hardened like the slag that runs out of the fire
Gylfaginning 5 Snorri describes the rivers freezing into the rime from which Ymir is quickened.
There dwells to the east of Elivagar Hymir the wise at the end of heaven
Hymiskviða 5 In Hymiskviða, Élivágar is a boundary on the way to the giant Hymir.

Where the sources disagree or fall silent

  • Snorri equates Élivágar with the rivers flowing from Hvergelmir in Niflheim only by placing the two descriptions side by side (Gylfaginning 4-5); he does not say outright that they are the same streams.
  • Brodeur's 'Icy Stream', which Thor wades carrying Aurvandill out of Jötunheimr (Skáldskaparmál 17), translates the same Old Norse name.

Myths with Élivágar

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. Thor fishes for the World Serpent Sent to fetch a giant's brewing kettle, Thor goes fishing with the giant Hymir, baits his hook with an ox-head and hauls the Midgard Serpent up to the gunwale. The poem Hymiskvíða and Snorri tell it differently, and disagree on how it ended.

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. Ginnungagap The empty chasm that existed before the world, between the ice of Niflheim and the fire of Múspell, where the giant Ymir came to life. Niflheimr The cold, misty world of the north in Snorri's creation story, source of the rivers and later Hel's realm; the poems know only Niflhel, a deep region of the dead. Hvergelmir The spring from which all rivers flow, fed by the dripping horns of a hart in Valhall; Snorri puts it in Niflheim under a root of Yggdrasil, swarming with serpents. 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. Hymir The sea-giant who takes Thor fishing for the Midgard Serpent and owns the great kettle the gods need to brew ale; Hymiskviða makes him Týr's father. 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.