Chapter 3: The Creation Part 3 - Odin's Wisdom Is Another Man's Pain

So, Odin, Vili and Ve created the world. Great job. Now their next mission was to find a place to settle. Since they took credit for world creation they decided that they deserved the best place. The three musketeers found Idavoll, a land of green and beautiful plains high up in the middle world, and there they built up Asgard. Why call it Ass-gard? Probably because Odin was in the project, and eventually became its king. Not much is heard of his brothers since, they probably decided that it would be best to lay low. We'll get more to the Allfather's nature later.

Of course, the jotuns weren't allowed to live anywhere near Asgard. They settled in Utgard, or Jotunheim which is the most common name. Jotunheim was separated from Asgard by the river Lving, which never freezes over. Makes sense. The land consisted mostly of rock, dense forests, wilderness and cold. This resulted in an all meat and fish diet for the jotuns, since it was impossible to grow any crops in Jotunheim. So if you are vegetarian or vegan, you better turn back.

The most powerful and fearsome ruler in Jotunheim is Utgard-Loki, whose stronghold is said to be so big that you can hardly see the top of it. He also has an enormous sign outside saying "NO I'M NOT 'THE FAMOUS' LOKI GET OUT". You know if I knew that it was the Jotun King Utgard-Loki that ate my falafel I wouldn't have attacked him. Probably. Okay maybe, but no one touches my falafels. Well I just hope I won't have to meet him again, though I have a bad feeling that it hasn't been the last I've seen of him.

During the time Odin and his brothers were busy with braiding Ymir's hair to trees and splashing his brain up the sky, worms started crawling out from the corpse. Who, became the first dwarves. You know, I've really tried to be respectful (okay no I haven't) to all the people in the nine realms, but I just got to say, that is really disturbing. Sorry Blitz.

The worm-dwarf brothers told each other to hold up the sky, since no one wanted Ymir's brain to fall down on them. Can relate.

"Hey, go and hold up the sky" said one of them.

"Why don't YOU hold up the sky?" said another.

"I like… trains" said a third.

Eventually, probably after a few fist fights and one death from a passing train coming out of nowhere, four brothers agreed to hold up the sky. Nordi in north, Vestri in west, Sundri in south and Austri in Austria. I'm joking he was in east. The other dwarves, who were very happy to be relieved from that duty, made their homes in caves and rocks. Well they were originally worms after all. Their home was named Nidavellir, and dwarves became masters of craftsmanship, creating almost every cool tool of the aesirs like Mjollnir, which we'll get to later.

Now what about humans you wonder? Luckily for all of us, our origin story isn't as gruesome as the others. Not that it's any less weird. See one day Odin & Co was walking on the beach of the world they had created, enjoying the breeze of jotuns humiliation and so on. When they suddenly found two logs washed up on the shore, one from the Elm tree and the other from an Ash tree.(if you thought of the pokémon dude, you're a nerd. Wait..)

"Brothers!" Odin rejoiced.

"Oh no" said Vili.

"I have an idea!" Odin continued

"Not again…" Ve grunted at his brother.

"I'm going to give these tree logs life!" cheered the Allfather and ran up to the washed up trees.

His brothers chose not to argue with him, knowing that it would be futile. First, Odin gave the logs spirit and life. Vili and Ve saw that this wasn't enough, so Ve gave them movement, mind and intelligence, and Vili gave them shape, speech, feelings and their five senses. Thus, the first two humans had been created, your ancestors. Congratulations, you're a tree.

The humans, named Ask and Embla, was placed by the gods in Midgard, the land just below Asgard. To protect them from the continuously invading jotuns, who weren't to happy about their share of the world, the gods built a giant fence around Midgard.

Although the gods cared for the humans, since the ones who created us wasn't, I don't know, chained to a stone and having an eagle pick on their entrails.

But the important thing was that you could NEVER think yourself equal to them. Nuh-huh.

Now after talking about Asgard and Jotunheim and worm world and tree people, I think it's time we go to a quick look on Vanaheim, home of the vanir gods and my father. To be honest, I couldn't find that much information about the place's origin (reading up on all the others, I'm actually really glad I couldn't find anything). All I know is that the vanir were an old branch of gods, who specialised in sorcery, seering and often associated with fertility and wisdom. Like Freyr, my dad. Who is, like, the best god. You'll know why.

Anyway, the vanir and asgardians wasn't exactly in a bromance with each other. There was a big and bloody war between the races, who finally died down after they signed a peace-treaty with each other and exchanged hostages. The asgardians sent Mimir, god of wisdom, and Honir, god of indecisiveness. The vanir sent Njord, god of the sea, and his two twins Freyr (my dad) god of fertility, sunlight, rain and peace, and Freyja goddess of love, fertility, magic and death. All three vanir grew fast in popularity, not just in Asgard but also among the mortals. But what about the aesir gods in Vanaheim? Meh not so popular. The vanir were increasingly annoyed by Honir, who would always rely on his companion Mimir, whose own opinions wasn't so favoured by the vanir. They felt tricked, and resolved it by cutting of Mimir's head and sending it back to the Allfather. Honestly, I once again have no idea what Odin expected from sending a god of indecisiveness and one of decisiveness. To preserve the head, Odin smeared it with herbs, and then recited a charm so the head would restore its power of speech. Why? Don't look at me, guess the old man really missed his old friend Mimir. Or he was just feeling experimental, which is more believable.

Mimir was later placed to guard a magic well at the root of the cosmic tree Yggradsil. Later, when Odin was really thirsty for the wisdom of the well, consisting of "many truths unknown to any other person", Mimir decided to be a really lousy friend.

"Mimir, I want to drink of your well" Odin proclaimed to his old friend Mr. beHead.

"Your payment?" Mimir asked the Allfather in an indifferent voice.

"Payment? But I resurrected you! I gave you life! I made you drink from this well and made you its guardian!"

"Yeah but you still gotta pay"

"... fine, do you take cash or credit?" Odin finally gave in.

"Cash only"

"Bloody Ymir!" he cursed, remembering he forgot his cash at home.

"Maybe you have something else to offer?" the head said in a greedy tone. He knew a lot of awesome stuff Odin had, stuff he would have no problems with taking possession of. He was a great friend like that.

"Oh I know!" Odin ripped out one of his eyes, and dropped it in Mimir's well.

"What did you do that for?!" Mimir was both furious and annoyed, because Odin's eye wasn't on the top ten list of things he wanted from the Allfather.

"Yeah but I payed, and I payed a heavy price for knowledge, as it must be"

"You could have just offered me some…"

"Don't question wisdom!"

"I think that's the whole thing about wis…"

"I have spoken!"

Finally, Mimir gave up and let Odin drink from the well of wisdom. And just as I got information from reading norse mythology, that I never asked or wanted, Odin had to pay the same price. For the knowledge he got, was the heavy burden of knowing the inescapable doom of the world. Ragnarök. Not that he had to suffer alone with it, the bastard shared the bloody secret with the entire world.