Ask and Embla - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Norse mythology

Norse mythology, a subset of Germanic mythology, is the overall term for the myths, legends and beliefs about supernatural beings of Norse pagans. It flourished prior to the Christianization of Scandinavia, during the Early Middle Ages, and passed into Nordic folklore, with some aspects surviving...

, Ask and Embla (from Old Norse Askr ok Embla)—male and female respectively—were the first two humans, created by the gods. The pair are attested in both the Poetic Edda
Poetic Edda
The Poetic Edda is a collection of Old Norse poems primarily preserved in the Icelandic mediaeval manuscript Codex Regius. Along with Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda, the Poetic Edda is the most important extant source on Norse mythology and Germanic heroic legends, and from the early 19th century...

, compiled in the 13th century from earlier traditional sources, and the Prose Edda
Prose Edda
The Prose Edda, also known as the Younger Edda, Snorri's Edda or simply Edda, is an Icelandic collection of four sections interspersed with excerpts from earlier skaldic and Eddic poetry containing tales from Nordic mythology...

, written in the 13th century by Snorri Sturluson

Snorri Sturluson

Snorri Sturluson was an Icelandic historian, poet, and politician. He was twice elected lawspeaker at the Icelandic parliament, the Althing...

. In both sources, three gods, one of whom is Odin

Odin

Odin is a major god in Norse mythology and the ruler of Asgard. Homologous with the Anglo-Saxon "Wōden" and the Old High German "Wotan", the name is descended from Proto-Germanic "*Wodanaz" or "*Wōđanaz"....

, find Ask and Embla and bestow upon them various corporeal and spiritual gifts. A number of theories have been proposed to explain the two figures, and there are occasional references to them in popular culture.

Etymology

Old Norse

Old Norse is a North Germanic language that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and inhabitants of their overseas settlements during the Viking Age, until about 1300....

askr literally means "ash tree" but the etymology

Etymology

Etymology is the study of the history of words, their origins, and how their form and meaning have changed over time.For languages with a long written history, etymologists make use of texts in these languages and texts about the languages to gather knowledge about how words were used during...

of embla is uncertain, and two possibilities of the meaning of embla are generally proposed. The first meaning, "elm tree", is problematic, and is reached by deriving *Elm-la from *Almilōn and subsequently to almr ("elm"). The second suggestion is "vine

Vine

A vine in the narrowest sense is the grapevine , but more generally it can refer to any plant with a growth habit of trailing or scandent, that is to say climbing, stems or runners...

", which is reached through *Ambilō, which may be related to the Greek

Greek language

Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

term ámpelos, itself meaning "vine, liana

Liana

A liana is any of various long-stemmed, woody vines that are rooted in the soil at ground level and use trees, as well as other means of vertical support, to climb up to the canopy to get access to well-lit areas of the forest. Lianas are especially characteristic of tropical moist deciduous...

". The latter etymology has resulted in a number of theories.

According to Benjamin Thorpe

Benjamin Thorpe

Benjamin Thorpe was an English scholar of Anglo-Saxon.-Biography:After studying for four years at Copenhagen University, under the Danish philologist Rasmus Christian Rask, he returned to England in 1830, and in 1832 published an English version of Caedmon's metrical paraphrase of portions of the...

"Grimm

Jacob Grimm

Jacob Ludwig Carl Grimm was a German philologist, jurist and mythologist. He is best known as the discoverer of Grimm's Law, the author of the monumental Deutsches Wörterbuch, the author of Deutsche Mythologie and, more popularly, as one of the Brothers Grimm, as the editor of Grimm's Fairy...

says the word embla, emla, signifies a busy woman, from amr, ambr, aml, ambl, assiduous labour; the same relation as Meshia and Meshiane

Mashya and Mashyana

According to the Zoroastrian cosmogony, Mashya and Mashyana were the first man and woman whose procreation gave rise to the human race.-Etymology:...

, the ancient Persian names of the first man and woman, who were also formed from trees."

Attestations

In stanza 17 of the Poetic Edda poem Völuspá
Völuspá
Völuspá is the first and best known poem of the Poetic Edda. It tells the story of the creation of the world and its coming end related by a völva addressing Odin...

, the völva

Völva

A vǫlva or völva is a shamanic seeress in Norse paganism, and a recurring motif in Norse mythology....

reciting the poem describes that Hœnir

Hœnir

In Norse mythology, Hœnir is one of the Æsir. He is mentioned as the one who helped Odin to create humans.- Attestations :In Ynglinga saga, along with Mímir, he went to the Vanir as a hostage to seal a truce after the Æsir-Vanir War...

, Lóðurr

Lóðurr

Lóðurr is a god in Norse mythology. In the Poetic Edda poem Völuspá he is assigned a role in animating the first humans, but apart from that he is hardly ever mentioned, and remains obscure. Scholars have variously identified him with Loki, Vé, Vili and Freyr, but consensus has not been reached on...

and Odin

Odin

once found Ask and Embla on land. The völva says that the two were capable of very little, lacking in ørlög
Wyrd
Wyrd is a concept in Anglo-Saxon culture roughly corresponding to fate or personal destiny. The word is ancestral to Modern English weird, which retains its original meaning only dialectally....

and describes that they were given three gifts by the three gods:

Old Norse:

Ǫnd þau né átto, óð þau né hǫfðo,

lá né læti né lito góða.

Ǫnd gaf Óðinn, óð gaf Hœnir,

lá gaf Lóðurr ok lito góða.

Benjamin Thorpe
Benjamin Thorpe
Benjamin Thorpe was an English scholar of Anglo-Saxon.-Biography:After studying for four years at Copenhagen University, under the Danish philologist Rasmus Christian Rask, he returned to England in 1830, and in 1832 published an English version of Caedmon's metrical paraphrase of portions of the...

translation:

Spirit they possessed not, sense they had not,

blood nor motive powers, nor goodly colour.

Spirit gave Odin, sense gave Hœnir,

blood gave Lodur, and goodly colour.

Henry Adams Bellows
Henry Adams Bellows
Henry Adams Bellows was a lawyer, state legislator, and jurist born in Rockingham, Vermont. He was elected to the New Hampshire House of Representatives from Littleton, New Hampshire in 1839. He was subsequently elected again to the House from Concord, New Hampshire in 1856–1857, and served as...

translation:

Soul they had not, sense they had not,

Heat nor motion, nor goodly hue;

Soul gave Othin, sense gave Hönir,

Heat gave Lothur and goodly hue.

An amount of scholarly disagreement has occurred over the meaning of these gifts and translations therefore vary.

According to chapter 9 of the Prose Edda book Gylfaginning
Gylfaginning
Gylfaginning, or the Tricking of Gylfi , is the first part of Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda after Prologue. The Gylfaginning deals with the creation and destruction of the world of the Norse gods, and many other aspects of Norse mythology...

, the three brothers Vili, Vé

Vili and Vé

In Norse mythology, Vili and Vé are the brothers of Óðinn , sons of Bestla daughter of Bölþorn and Borr son of Búri:Old Norse Vili means "will"...

, and Odin, are the creators of the first man and woman. The brothers were once walking along a beach and found two trees there. They took the wood and from it created the first human beings; Ask and Embla. One of the three gave them the breath of life, the second gave them movement and intelligence, and the third gave them shape, speech, hearing and sight. Further, the three gods gave them clothing and names. Ask and Embla go on to become the progenitors of all humanity and were given a home within the walls of Midgard

Midgard

Midgard is one of the Nine Worlds and is an old Germanic name for our world and is the home of Humans, with the literal meaning "middle enclosure".-Etymology:...

Theories

A Proto-Indo-European

Proto-Indo-Europeans

The Proto-Indo-Europeans were the speakers of the Proto-Indo-European language , a reconstructed prehistoric language of Eurasia.Knowledge of them comes chiefly from the linguistic reconstruction, along with material evidence from archaeology and archaeogenetics...

basis has been theorized for the duo based on the etymology of embla meaning "vine." In Indo-European societies, an analogy is derived from the drilling of fire and sexual intercourse

Sexual intercourse

Sexual intercourse, also known as copulation or coitus, commonly refers to the act in which a male's penis enters a female's vagina for the purposes of sexual pleasure or reproduction. The entities may be of opposite sexes, or they may be hermaphroditic, as is the case with snails...

. Vines were used as a flammable wood, where they were placed beneath a drill made of harder wood, resulting in fire. Further evidence of ritual making of fire in Scandinavia

Scandinavia

Scandinavia is a cultural, historical and ethno-linguistic region in northern Europe that includes the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, characterized by their common ethno-cultural heritage and language. Modern Norway and Sweden proper are situated on the Scandinavian Peninsula,...

has been theorized from a depiction on a stone plate on a Bronze Age grave in Kivik

The King's Grave

The King's Grave near Kivik in the southeastern portion of the Swedish province of Skåne is what remains of an unusually grand Nordic Bronze Age double burial c...

, Scania

Scania

Scania is the southernmost of the 25 traditional non-administrative provinces of Sweden, constituting a peninsula on the southern tip of the Scandinavian peninsula, and some adjacent islands. The modern administrative subdivision Skåne County is almost, but not totally, congruent with the...

, Sweden

Sweden

Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

.

A preceding stanza to the account of the creation of Ask and Embla in Völuspá provides a catalog of dwarfs

Dwarf (Germanic mythology)

In Germanic mythology, a dwarf is a being that dwells in mountains and in the earth, and is associated with wisdom, smithing, mining, and crafting...

, and stanza 10 has been considered as describing the creation of human forms from the earth. This may potentially mean that dwarfs formed humans, and that the three gods gave them life. Carolyne Larrington theorizes that humans are metaphorically designated as trees in Old Norse works (examples include "trees of jewellery" for women and "trees of battle" for men) due to the origin of humankind stemming from trees; Ask and Embla.

Two wooden figures of "more than human height" were unearthed from a peat bog at Braak

Braak

Braak is a municipality in the district of Stormarn, in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany....

in Schleswig, Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

. The figures depict a nude male and a nude female. Hilda Ellis Davidson comments that these figures may represent a "Lord and Lady" of the Vanir

Vanir

In Norse mythology, the Vanir are a group of gods associated with fertility, wisdom and the ability to see the future. The Vanir are one of two groups of gods and are the namesake of the location Vanaheimr . After the Æsir–Vanir War, the Vanir became a subgroup of the Æsir...

, a group of Norse gods, and that "another memory of [these wooden deities] may survive in the tradition of the creation of Ask and Embla, the man and woman who founded the human race, created by the gods from trees on the seashore".

A figure named Æsc

Oisc of Kent

Oisc was an early king of Kent who ruled from about 488 to about 516.Little is known about him, and the information that does survive regarding his life is often vague and suspect. He seems to have been the son or the grandson of Hengest, who led the initial Anglo-Saxon conquest and settlement of...

(Old English

Old English language

Old English or Anglo-Saxon is an early form of the English language that was spoken and written by the Anglo-Saxons and their descendants in parts of what are now England and southeastern Scotland between at least the mid-5th century and the mid-12th century...

"ash tree") appears as the son of Hengest in the Anglo-Saxon

Anglo-Saxons

Anglo-Saxon is a term used by historians to designate the Germanic tribes who invaded and settled the south and east of Great Britain beginning in the early 5th century AD, and the period from their creation of the English nation to the Norman conquest. The Anglo-Saxon Era denotes the period of...

genealogy for the kings of Kent

Kent

Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...

. This has resulted in an amount of theories that the figures may have had an earlier basis in pre-Norse Germanic mythology

Germanic mythology

Germanic mythology is a comprehensive term for myths associated with historical Germanic paganism, including Norse mythology, Anglo-Saxon mythology, Continental Germanic mythology, and other versions of the mythologies of the Germanic peoples...

.

Connections have been proposed between Ask and Embla and the Vandal

Vandals

The Vandals were an East Germanic tribe that entered the late Roman Empire during the 5th century. The Vandals under king Genseric entered Africa in 429 and by 439 established a kingdom which included the Roman Africa province, besides the islands of Sicily, Corsica, Sardinia and the Balearics....

kings Assi and Ambri, attested in Paul the Deacon

Paul the Deacon

Paul the Deacon , also known as Paulus Diaconus, Warnefred, Barnefridus and Cassinensis, , was a Benedictine monk and historian of the Lombards.-Life:...

's 7th century AD work Origo Gentis Langobardorum
Origo Gentis Langobardorum
The Origo Gentis Langobardorum is a short 7th century account offering a founding myth of the Lombard people. The first part visions the origin and naming of the Lombards, and the following text more resembles a king-list, up until the rule of Perctarit , which helps date the original writing of...

. There, the two ask the god Godan

Wodanaz

or is the reconstructed Proto-Germanic name of a god of Germanic paganism, known as in Norse mythology, in Old English, or in Old High German and in Lombardic...

(Odin) for victory. The name Ambri, like Embla, likely derives from *Ambilō.

Modern influence

Ask and Embla have been the subject of a number of references and artistic depictions. A sculpture depicting the two stands in the southern Swedish city of Sölvesborg

Sölvesborg

Sölvesborg is a locality and the seat of Sölvesborg Municipality in Blekinge County, Sweden with 7,883 inhabitants in 2005.Sölvesborg is, despite its small population, for historical reasons normally still referred to as a city...

, created in 1948 by Stig Blomberg. Ask and Embla are depicted on two of the sixteen wooden panels found on the Oslo City Hall

Oslo City Hall

Oslo City Hall houses the city council, city administration, and art studios and galleries. The construction started in 1931, but was paused by the outbreak of World War II, before the official inauguration in 1950. Its characteristic architecture, artworks and the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony, held...

in Oslo

Oslo

Oslo is a municipality, as well as the capital and most populous city in Norway. As a municipality , it was established on 1 January 1838. Founded around 1048 by King Harald III of Norway, the city was largely destroyed by fire in 1624. The city was moved under the reign of Denmark–Norway's King...

, Norway

Norway

Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...

by Dagfin Werenskjold. In 2003, Faroese

Faroe Islands

The Faroe Islands are an island group situated between the Norwegian Sea and the North Atlantic Ocean, approximately halfway between Scotland and Iceland. The Faroe Islands are a self-governing territory within the Kingdom of Denmark, along with Denmark proper and Greenland...

artist Anker Eli Petersen

Anker Eli Petersen

Anker Eli Petersen is a Faroese writer and artist.He is most known for his many Faroe Islands postage stamp designs under the name Anker Eli. Many of his stamps depict scenes from Norse mythology, Christianity, or interpretations of other Faroese authors or poets...

included a depiction of the couple in his series of Faroe Islands stamps.

Etymology

Attestations

Theories

Modern influence

See also