Bergelmir

Ymir’s blood surged from his wounds after Odin and his brothers killed him. The flood spread across the world and drowned the frost-giants. Bergelmir and his wife survived by taking refuge in a lúðr. They remained there until the waters receded. Their descendants became the ancestors of later races of frost-giants.

Snorri Sturluson records this account in Gylfaginning, part of the Prose Edda. He describes the lúðr as an ark and says that Bergelmir lay safely inside it with his wife. This version presents the refuge as a vessel that carried them through the flood.

The Poetic Edda gives a less certain account. In Vafþrúðnismál, Bergelmir recalls that he was born long before the earth was shaped and that he lay in the lúðr during the flood. Part of the relevant stanza is missing from one manuscript. Another passage says that Bergelmir was laid under a mill-stone. The lúðr may therefore have been a box or chest, a cradle, the timbers supporting a mill, or the mill itself. On this reading, Bergelmir did not escape in a boat. He was placed on the mill and survived while Ymir’s substance was ground into mould and sand.