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Vafthruthnismol

And thence arose our giants' race,
And thus so fierce are we found."

Othin spake:
32. "Seventh answer me well, if wise thou art called,
If thou knowest it, Vafthruthnir, now:
How begat he children, the giant grim,
Who never a giantess knew?"

Vafthruthnir spake:

33.^[1] "They say 'neath the arms of the giant of ice
Grew man-child and maid together;
And foot with foot did the wise one fashion
A son that six heads bore."

Othin spake:
34. "Eighth answer me well, if wise thou art called,
If thou knowest it, Vafthruthnir, now:
What farthest back dost thou bear in mind?
For wide is thy wisdom, giant!"

froze into ice-banks over Ginnunga-gap (the "yawning gap" referred to in Voluspo, 3), and then dripped down to make the giant Ymir.

↑ Snorri gives, without materially elaborating on it, the same account of how Ymir's son and daughter were born under his left arm, and how his feet together created a son. That this offspring should have had six heads is nothing out of the ordinary, for various giants had more than the normal number, and Hymir's mother is credited with a little matter of nine hundred heads; cf. Hymiskvitha, 8. Of the career of Ymir's six-headed son we know nothing; he may have been the Thruthgelmir of stanza 29.

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[Vafthruthnismol_33-1] Snorri gives, without materially elaborating on it, the same account of how Ymir's son and daughter were born under his left arm, and how his feet together created a son. That this offspring should have had six heads is nothing out of the ordinary, for various giants had more than the normal number, and Hymir's mother is credited with a little matter of nine hundred heads; cf. Hymiskvitha, 8. Of the career of Ymir's six-headed son we know nothing; he may have been the Thruthgelmir of stanza 29.

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