NORTHERN MYTHOLOGY. 53 
high walls and strongly barred gates. Misery is her palace; Hunger, 
her table; Starvation, her knife; Delay, her waiter; Sloth, her maid; 
Patience, her threshold; Sickness, her bed; Burning Anguish and Blas- 
phemy, its curtains. One half of the body is livid, and the other the color 
of human flesh ; one side of her head is covered with hair, while the other, 
the livid side, is hideously bald, which contributes to increase the frightful 
appearance of her grim countenance. 
Some of the waters flowed at one time so far from their source, that the 
poison which they contained became hard, and this was the origin of the 
ice, which now began to fill the dark abyss. But the ice was affected by 
the fiery vapors of Muspelhewm, and the drops that fell from the melting 
mass formed themselves into the giant Hymir, who became the father of a 
new generation, and especially of all the giants that have ever since lived 
in the world. As he lay stretched out sleeping, his natural warmth 
brought forth a man and a woman from his armpits, and the contact of his 
two feet produced a son. ‘These became afterwards the progenitors of a 
race called Hrimthussar, or frost giants. These giants were demi-gods, 
and nearly related to the gods of the first order, but were nevertheless 
their greatest enemies ; for Hymir and his posterity had a great portion of 
the poison of the Elivanger in their bodies, and were therefore of a wicked 
disposition, and employed all their powers in efforts to injure the gods. 
Besides Hymir there sprang also from the melted ice a wonderful cow, 
Audhumbla, whose milk, which flowed from her in four rivers, afforded 
nourishment and food to the giant. ‘The cow supported herself by licking the 
hoarfrost and salt from the ice. But these rivers of milk were not the only 
wonderful production of this cow; for while she was one day licking the 
saltstones, there appeared at first the hair of a man, on the second day the 
whole head, and on the third the entire form endowed with beauty, agility, 
and power. This new being was a god who is called Lure, and became 
the father of Bér, who married Belsta the daughter of the giant Belthorn, 
by whom he had three sons, Odin, Vile, and Ve. These three now made 
war upon Hymir and slew him, and in the deluge caused by his blood as it 
flowed from his body all the giants were drowned except Lergelmer and 
his wife, who escaped in a boat. Odin and his brothers then commenced 
to create the visible world out of the body of the slain giant. They dragged 
the body of Hymir into the middle of the abyss, cut it in pieces, and formed 
out of the flesh the earth, his blood became the sea, his bones became 
mountains, his teeth rocks, his hair trees, his skull the arch of heaven, and 
his brain clouds pregnant with hail and snow. With his eyebrows the 
gods formed the castle Midgard (middle earth), destined to become the 
abode of man. The earth thus formed is round and flat, and the arched 
heaven above it is supported by four dwarfs called the Hast, South, West, 
and Worth. The sea forms a belt around the earth, and beyond this belt is 
the land of the giants. 
But thick darkness stil! covered all the world created by the three 
brothers; to dispel which they gathered the sparks and beams that issued 
from Muspelheim and scattered them in the firmament to light the earth, 
‘ICONOGRAPHIC ENCYCLOP£DIA.—VOL. IV. 18 273 
