Askr and Embla

Odin, Vili and Vé pulled two trees from the shore and fashioned them into a man and a woman. Some accounts instead describe two logs lying on the beach. Vé carved male features into one figure and female features into the other.

Odin gave the figures spirit and life. Vili gave them understanding and the power of movement. Vé gave them human form, speech, hearing and sight. The brothers clothed them against the cold sea spray, then named them after completing their work.

The man was called Askr, also given as Ask. The woman was called Embla. The brothers placed them in Midgard, which had been given to humans as a dwelling place. Askr and Embla became the ancestors of Midgard's inhabitants and the human race.

Earlier, Odin and his brothers had killed the giant Ymir and made the world from his body. His flesh became the earth, his blood became the sea, his bones became the rocks, his skull became the heavens, and his eyebrows formed Midgard's boundary. Askr and Embla lived within this ordered world, and their descendants spread through it.