Yggdrasil · Described Without a Place on the Map

Ginnungagap

The primordial void between the cold of Niflheim and the fire of Muspell.

Myth and literature · Quotation

In Blackwell’s translation

…that lies towards the north was thus filled with heavy masses of gelid vapour and ice, whilst everywhere within were whirlwinds and fleeting mists. But the southern part of Ginnungagap was lighted by the sparks and flakes that flew into it from Muspellheim.

Myth and literature

What the sources say

In Gylfaginning, before the earth was made there was Niflheimr in the north and Múspellsheimr in the south, with the empty gap Ginnungagap between them. The northern part of the gap filled with ice and frost from Niflheimr, while the southern part was lit by the sparks and flakes that flew from Múspellsheimr. Where the warm air met the frost it melted into drops, and from the drops came the giant Ymir.

It belongs to the account of the beginning of the world. It is not a place on the finished world, so it has no dot on the map.

  • attributed to Snorri Sturluson, Prose Edda: Gylfaginning (13th century), the creation passage
Myth and literature · Context

Names and background

The name is usually read as coming from a verb meaning to gape or yawn, but Wikipedia’s article points out that no such Old Norse word is found outside the third stanza of Völuspá, so the poet may have been making a deliberate wordplay. Ursula Dronke suggested the term was borrowed from Old High German ginunga. Another reading links the first element to sacred terms such as ginnheilagr (for the gods) and ginnrún (runes), giving a space full of magical, creative power.

The sources also differ in emphasis. Gylfaginning describes ice and rime in the north and sparks from Múspellheim in the south, while Völuspá has Odin and his two brothers make the world from it without that two-sided picture.

Historical evidence

Evidence beyond the Eddas

Outside the Eddas, the skald Þjóðólfr of Hvinir plays on the term in the poem Haustlǫng, using the phrase ginnunga vé. Much later, a fragment in Gripla (15th century) and a note added to Adam of Bremen in a 15th-century manuscript, which uses the form Ghimmendegop for an abyss in the far north, show the idea being applied to real geography. From the early 15th century, Scandinavian mapmakers tried to place Ginnungagap on actual maps: the Gripla text puts it between Greenland and Vinland, and a map associated with Guðbrandur Þorláksson links the name with what may be the Davis Strait.

Discovery trails that pass through here