ATDTDA (5.1) - The Etienne-Louis Malus

[robinlandseadel at comcast.net]

              Already, by the the time of Harald Hardrade, the once terrible 
              void was scarcely a remnant, a vaporous residue of the world's 
              creation and the high drama of the Ymir-Audumla era, no longer 
              the intersection of Niflheim's ice and Muspellheim's fire but the 
              debris from a calamitous birth. 128

YMIR 
Alternative: Aurgelmir Pronounced: I-meer 
Ymir is the founder of the race of frost giants 
and an important figure in Germanic cosmology. 
In the beginning of time he was formed from the 
primal ice of Niflheim, where it met with the heat 
from Muspelheim's primal fire and melted (according 
to the Prose Edda) or from the mists rising from the 
rivers that flow from Niflheim (according to the Eddic 
poem Vafthrudnismal). Giants came forth from Ymir's 
body while he slept. His legs spawned a man and a 
woman, who came out of his body through the armpits. 
The primal cow Audumla had four udders of milk which
 fed Ymir. Audumla licked hoar frost and salt from ice, 
eventually revealing Buri, father of Bor and the 
grandfather of Odin, Vili and Ve. Odin and his brothers 
killed Ymir. Only two giants survived the flood of Ymir's 
blood: Ymir's grandson, Bergelmir (son of Thrudgelmir), 
and his wife. They made the sky from his skull, the earth 
from Ymir body; his blood became the sea and the waters 
of the earth, his bones the rocks, and his hair trees 
and bushes.

http://www.odinsvolk.ca/O.V.A.%20-%20GODSundGODDESSES.htm