Norse cosmogony as recorded in the Eddas begins not with nothing but with Ginnungagap, a yawning, formless void positioned between two older realms, the fiery Muspelheim to the south and the freezing Niflheim to the north. Where the heat drifting from Muspelheim met the rime and ice flowing out of Niflheim, in the emptiness of Ginnungagap, the meeting warmth caused the ice to drip and take shape, and from these dripping, melting layers the first living being formed: the giant Ymir, ancestor of all the frost giants. As Ymir slept, he sweated, and from the sweat under his left arm a male and a female giant grew, while his two legs together produced a six-headed son, the first generations of giants born without any female partner needed at all.
The same meltwater that formed Ymir also shaped a great cow, Audhumla, who nourished Ymir by her milk while she herself fed by licking the salty blocks of ice nearby. Her licking gradually uncovered a man's shape frozen within the ice, and over three days of licking she freed him entirely: Buri, the first of the gods, whose grandsons, born to his son Bor and the giantess Bestla, were Odin and his brothers Vili and Ve, the three gods who would eventually turn against Ymir and the giants he had spawned.