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Ask and Embla – the First Human Pair

Mythology Ask and Embla, the first human pair on the shore

The world was ordered, the sun ran its course – but the shore lay empty. Then three gods found on the sea-strand two pieces of driftwood and made from them the first human pair: Ask and Embla. From them, says the Edda, we all descend.

Ask (‘ash’) and Embla (probably ‘elm’, or a word for a vine) were at first lifeless logs without fate. Only the gifts of the gods made them human.

Three gifts, one human

According to the Völuspá, three Æsir came to the shore: Odin, Hönir and Lodurr (in Snorri: Odin, Vili and Vé). They found Ask and Embla ‘without breath, without fate’. Odin gave them önd – breath, the spirit of life; Hönir gave óðr – mind and motion; Lodurr gave lá and litr góðr – warmth, blood and blooming hue. So from dead wood came a living human, at home in Midgard.

“Soul they had not, sense they had not, / heat nor motion, nor goodly hue; / soul gave Othin, sense gave Hönir, / heat gave Lothur and goodly hue.”Völuspá 18, translation after Henry Adams Bellows (public domain)
Sources. The making of Ask and Embla stands in the Völuspá (st. 17–18) and in Snorri's Gylfaginning. Notably, the three givers are named differently in the two sources (Hönir/Lodurr vs. Vili/Vé). The reading of the tree-names is not wholly certain – ‘ash’ for Ask is secure; ‘Embla’ is usually taken as elm or as a word for a vine.

Myth & meaning. That the human is made from trees is an ancient, widespread image – and in the tree- and timber-rich North especially fitting. The human carries three divine gifts within: breath, mind and warm blood. For a workshop that works in wood, the thought is a lovely one: there is life in the material, if you give it the right form.

Laser-engraved wooden tree-slice with a Yggdrasil motif by Glanz & Gravur
Made from the wood – laser-engraved tree-slices & wooden signs. Wood in the shop →

Read more with us

Ymir & the making of the world · Audhumla & Buri · Midgard · Odin · The Nine Worlds.

Sources & literature

Völuspá (Poetic Edda), English public domain: Henry Adams Bellows (1923). Snorri Sturluson, Gylfaginning. Scholarship: Rudolf Simek, Dictionary of Northern Mythology; John Lindow, Norse Mythology.

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