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Borr, a MythSource painting
Norse

Borr

Son of Buri · Husband of Bestla · Father of Odin

01Identity

Marriage to the giantess Bestla placed Borr at the centre of the gods’ first family. He was a Norse deity, the son of Buri and father of Odin and two other sons. His lineage joins Buri, the man revealed from ice, with Bestla’s giant ancestry. This distinguishes Borr from Buri, his father, and Odin, his son.

Top questions
02Family

Parents above, children below, and the figure’s consorts named in between, the same family data as the fact box, laid out as a chart instead of a field list.

03The myths

1 myth, each traced to its primary text and corpus sources.

Borr married Bestla, daughter of the giant Bölthorn. They had three sons, Odin, Vili, and Vé. The brothers later took part in ordering the world and creating humankind.

Borr came from the line of the first beings formed when ice and fire met. As the ice melted, life appeared in the waters. Ymir emerged, larger than any giant, along with a great cow called Audhumla. Audhumla fed Ymir with milk from her four udders. She lived by licking salty ice blocks covered with rime.

As Audhumla licked the ice, she revealed a man. His hair appeared on the first day, his head on the second, and his whole body on the third. His name was Buri. He was fair, tall, and mighty. Buri had a son named Borr, who later married Bestla.

Borr and Bestla's sons found two trees on a beach. They made a man and a woman from them, then gave them soul, life, understanding, movement, clothing, names, speech, hearing, sight, and human form. They named them Ask and Embla. The inhabitants of Mithgarth descended from Ask and Embla, and therefore so did the human race.

Borr’s Marriage to Bestla, a MythSource painting of the scene

In the modern world

No modern rework confirmed yet.

2 sources· checked 2026-08-19

  1. 1Norse MythologyT1
  2. 2the ancient sourcesT1

    Quote

    Borr, son of Buri, married Bestla and fathered Odin, Vili, and Vé, whose work in ordering the world included creating Ask and Embla, the first human pair.

    the ancient sources

The film

The Underdrawing video on Borr embeds here once it publishes.

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