In the Prose Edda, Snorri Sturlusson gives a complete description of creation that combines a number of older sources, which
are not always consistent with each other. The major Eddic poems used by Snorri are the Vafþrúðnismál and Grímnismál
(the lays of Vafþrúðnir and Grímnir), which more or less duplicate each other, and the Voluspá (Prophecy of the Seeress); but
he also derives some details from sources lost to us and adds some deductions of his own. Quoting the Voluspá (st. 3), Snorri
stresses that at the beginning of time there was nothing but a great void called Ginnungagap, a void filled with powerful magic
forces (the term ginnung is related to Old Norse ginnregin, "the supreme gods", and runic ginArunAR, "runes endowed with
magic power"). In the Voluspá, the text reads: "When Ymir lived, in earliest times, there was neither sand,
nor sea, nor chill waves", whereas Snorri says, "In the beginning not anything existed, there was no
sand, nor sea, nor cooling waves.". It is probable that Snorri's version reflects the older tradition, because the idea of
an empty space and a world of mere potentiality preceding creation seems to belong to the ancestral heritage of the Germanic
people since it finds an uncanny parallel in the well-known cosmogonic hymn of the Rgveda: "There was neither
nonbeing nor being; nor was there space nor the sky above" (10.129). The same idea is expressed in Old
Norse by the phrase "Jorð fannz æva né upphiminn" ("Earth was unknown and heaven above"), an old poetic image
paralleled in Old High German in the ninth-century Prayer of Wessobrunn: "Dat ero ni was noh ufhimil" ("There was
neither earth nor sky above"), as well as in the Old English formula "Eorðan ... and upheofon."

Long before the earth was formed there existed Niflheimr, the dark misty world of death. In Niflheimr was a well called
Hvergelmir (lit., "resounding kettle", from hverr, "kettle", and -gelmir, related to galmr, "roaring"), from which eleven rivers
flowed. In the south lay the blazing hot world of Múspell over which the giant Surtr ("black") held sway. The occurence of the
Old High German word múspilli in a tenth-century Bavarian eschatological poem, where it designates the universal fire at the
end of the world, indicates that the concept reflects an old Germanic tradition.
The rivers whipped by showers pouring out of Niflheimr froze and layer after layer of ice piled up in Ginnungagap. However,
sparks and glowing embers flying out of Múspell met the hoarfrost and the ice, and from the slush and heat life emerged in the
shape of an anthropomorphic primeval being who received the name og Ymir, or Aurgelmir. From this primal giant sprang the
dreadful brood of the frost giants, whom he engendered by sweating a male and a female from under his left arm and begetting a
son from one of his legs with the other.
Obviously, Snorri has merged two traditions here that the Vafþrúðnismál keeps separate: in stanza 21, Ymir is named as the
giant involved in the formation of the world, but in stanzas 29-35, Vafþrúðnir, the oldes living giant, explains to Óðinn that the
genealogy of the giants begins with Aurgelmir, who fathered Þruðgelmir, who fathered Bergelmir, who fathered Vafþrúðnir
himself.

No direct source is available for the account of the origin of the gods that Snorri gives us next in the Gylfaginning; the melting
rime has taken the shape of a cow, Auðhumla, whose name contains Old Norse auðr ("riches"), and another term connected
with the English dialect word hummel or humble ("hornless cow"), presumably designating a "rich hornless cow". This cow
feeds Ymir with the milk flowing from her udders, a tradition paralleling that of the primeval cow in Indo-Iranian mythology.
Auðhumla gets her own food by licking the salty ice blocks, but in doing so, she gives shape to another primal being, Búri, who
begets a son, Borr. Borr marries Bestla, the daughter of the giant Bolþorn (literally, "evil thorn", a term still used in the Jutland
dialect (bøltorn) to designate a "scrappy, violent person"). Borr and his wife have three sons: Óðinn, Vili, and Vé.
When the three divine brothers kill the giant Ymir, the flow of blood gushing from his wounds drowns all the frost giants
(hrímþursar), except Bergelmir, who escapes mysteriously with his family to continue the race. Now the gods set about
building the earth. The body of Ymir is carried into the middle of the great void; his blood forms the sea and the lakes, his flesh
the earth, and his skull the sky (with a dwarf at each corner, as if to uphold it), his hair the trees, his brain the clouds, his bones
the mountains, and so on. Sparks from Múspell forms the stars and heavenly bodies, and the gods order their movements,
determining the divisions of time.
The earth was circular, surrounded by a vast ocean. In the middle of the earth the gods established Miðgarðr, a residence for
mankind, strengthened by a fence made from the eyebrows of Ymir, and they gave land on the shore for the giants to settle
down. The next task of the gods was the creation of man, which is related in the myth of Askr and Embla (Voluspá 17-18).
Finally, they built Ásgarðr, their own residence.