Snorri's Gylfaginning describes the creation of Miðgarðr from Ymir's body. Völuspá references the creation of Askr and Embla, the first humans. Grímnismál describes the outer ocean and Jörmungandr's position within it.
The Middle World
Miðgarðr — "middle enclosure" or "middle dwelling" — is the realm of humans. It sits at the center of the Norse cosmological map, surrounded by the other worlds on the branches and roots of Yggdrasil. The name encodes the Norse conception of their world: not the only world, not the highest world, but the middle one — bounded, mortal, between the forces of divine order and primal chaos.
According to Snorri's Gylfaginning, Miðgarðr was made from the body of Ymir, the primordial giant whom Odin, Vili, and Vé killed at the beginning of creation. His flesh became the land. His blood became the sea. His bones became the mountains. His skull became the sky, held up at the four corners by four dwarves: Norðri, Suðri, Austri, and Vestri — North, South, East, and West. His brain was scattered to make the clouds.
The world humans inhabit is, in Norse cosmology, the processed body of a giant. This is not incidental detail. It means the world humans live in was made from violence, carries the nature of what it was made from, and is not eternal — because what was made can be unmade.
Askr and Embla — The First Humans
Völuspá describes the creation of the first humans. Odin, Hœnir, and Lóðurr (the third is debated — possibly Loki, possibly an earlier name for one of the Æsir) walked along the land and found two trees — ash and elm, or possibly two tree trunks without leaves — devoid of life and purpose. The gods gave them gifts:
- Odin gave önd — breath, life-force, spirit
- Hœnir gave óðr — sense, vital energy, mental capacity (the same word-root as Odin's name)
- Lóðurr gave lítu góða — good color, fair complexion, the warmth and appearance of the living
They became Askr (ash) and Embla (elm or vine). From them descended all humans. The Norse creation of humanity from trees — not clay, not divine breath into dust, but wood found on the land and given divine gifts — is unusual in world mythology and consistent with the Norse material environment. Wood was life: ships, halls, tools, heat. The world-tree Yggdrasil is an ash. The first man is an ash. The connection is not coincidental.
The Great Ocean and Jörmungandr
Miðgarðr is described as encircled by a great ocean — Útgarðr, the outer yard, begins at the shore and extends outward to where the ordered world ends. In that ocean, coiled around Miðgarðr, lies Jörmungandr — the Miðgarðsormr, the Midgard Serpent. He is Loki's son by the giantess Angrboða, thrown into the deep sea by Odin because the Æsir feared what he would become.
He grew. He grew large enough to encircle all of Miðgarðr and bite his own tail. In this position — Ouroboros, the tail-biter — he holds the world together by holding himself together. His existence is the boundary. When he releases his tail, Ragnarök has begun.
Thor and Jörmungandr are mortal enemies by fate. Thor nearly pulled the serpent out of the sea when a giant king tricked him into fishing with an ox head for bait. At Ragnarök, they meet properly. Thor kills the serpent with Mjölnir. Thor then takes nine steps and falls, dead from the serpent's venom. They are each other's doom.
Innangard and Útangard
The Norse cosmological map divides the world into two zones: innangard (inside the enclosure) and útangard (outside the enclosure). This distinction operates at every scale simultaneously — from the cosmic (Ásgarðr and Miðgarðr are innangard; Jǫtunheimr is útangard) to the social (the hall and the farmstead are innangard; the forest and the wilderness are útangard) to the personal (one's kin group and legal community are innangard; the outlawed man has been pushed to útangard).
Miðgarðr occupies an interesting position in this framework: it is innangard relative to the outer ocean and the giants, but útangard relative to Ásgarðr. Humans are in the middle — more ordered than what surrounds them, less ordered than the gods above them. The Norse cosmos is a series of nested enclosures, each more dangerous and less structured as you move outward. Humans live in the third ring from the center, under divine protection they do not fully control, above chaos they do not fully escape.
The Gods in Midgard
The gods visit Miðgarðr, but they do not live there. Thor travels through Miðgarðr regularly — his journey to Útgarðr-Loki, his fishing expedition with the giant Hymir, his campaigns against the jötnar who threaten the human world. Odin walks disguised through Miðgarðr more often than is known. The valkyries cross it to select battle-dead. Loki, before his binding, moves freely between all worlds.
The relationship between the gods and the humans of Miðgarðr is not governance. There are no divine laws imposed on human society, no divine court to appeal to. The gods are patrons, sometimes adversaries, ultimately indifferent to individual human fate in the way any large force is indifferent to small things caught in it. They accept worship and blót; they occasionally intervene; they have their own concerns that are not humans' concerns. Living in Miðgarðr means living in a world that the gods shaped and maintain indirectly, but do not run.