Auðhumla and Búri

“Immediately after the gelid vapours had been resolved into drops, there was formed out of them the cow named Audhumla. Four streams of milk ran from her teats, and thus fed she Ymir.”

“The cow supported herself by licking the stones that were covered with salt and hoar frost. The first day that she licked these stones there sprang from them, towards evening, the hairs of a man, the second day a head, and on the third an entire man …”

Snorri tells the story in Gylfaginning, and the poems in the translation used here do not. When the frost drops melted, the cow Auðhumla was formed from them, and four streams of milk ran from her to feed Ymir. She herself lived on stones covered with salt and hoarfrost. Licking them for three days, she freed a man: hairs on the first day, a head on the second and the whole man on the third.

He was called Búri, the father of Borr. Borr married Bestla, the daughter of the giant Bölþorn, and their three sons were Odin, Vili and Vé. Snorri says it is the belief of the speakers that Odin and his brothers rule both heaven and earth.

The meaning of the name is not made clear. The glossary of this older edition offers a string of senses (“void, vacuity, darkness”), and the text itself does not explain the name.

The story links two lines: the giants, through Ymir whom she feeds, and the gods, through Búri whom she licks free. Nothing in the poems of this edition repeats it, so Snorri’s account is the one to rely on, and it is not possible to say from these texts how far it belongs to older belief.