Creation Myths for Kids

Hrafnfjall Hearthside's Creation Myths for Kids

Listen, children, and listen well
For I've a tale I would tell
A tale of Giants, full of might
And three Gods, who set the world right
This tale of old, a tale of the earth
Of its creation, its very birth
So hear me now, and hear me well.

Creation myths are a story about how the world around us came to be. Many different people from all over the world for a very long time have attempted to tell the story of how the world came to be. Here is what some of them, living long ago in the very north of the world, may have believed:
Origin of the Cosmos
Long before the world was, there was nothing. No air, no earth, no green grass or trees...No cats or dogs or anyone at all! It was dark, and cold, and quiet. On either side of this dark, cold nothing, there was a world of all fire, and there was a world of all ice. The fire world and the ice world slowly, so slowly, moved towards each other - but the ice world was sad because it melt the ice, and it thought this hurt the ice, because it turned into water as it got close to fire. But the ice was happy, because this water turned itself into a giant!
Now, there was a lot of fire, and a lot of ice, so there was a lot of water. Because there was a lot of water, it formed a very big giant! Now this very big giant, he was named Ymir, and when more water fell from him, more giants like him were made. Well, the fire saw this, and saw that the ice was happy, so it was happy too, so it kept on melting the ice, and forming more water, until a cow came out of it!
Her name was Audhumbla, and cows make milk, so Ymir the Giant could drink the milk from Audhumbla the Cow. Cows of course need to eat, too, but what did she eat? Luckily for her, the ice held some salt, and Audhumbla the Cow could eat that! As she licked it, and licked it, something else began to form: A person! Not just any person, though - His name was Buri, and he was an Aesir - a God! Buri had a son, named Borr, who married a Giant woman - a child of Ymir - and they had three children, Odin, Vili and Ve. Well, being smart, Odin, Vili, and Ve knew the world needed more - but where to get it? They thought about this, and thought about it, and thought about it...and suddenly their eyes fell on Ymir! Surely he was big enough to create worlds from him! And so they did. They took Ymir's blood, and made the oceans. His body became the earth. His bones became the mountains. They even made is teeth into rocks! Ymir's hair became the green, growing things, and he was so big, even his thoughts became clouds! His head became the sky itself! All this became Asgard - but his eyelashes? His eyelashes became the world WE live on. Now, all this creating took time, and took energy, and so Odin, Vili and Ve decided to enjoy the worlds they had created. As they were wandering our world, called Midgard, they found two trees which had fallen over.
They turned one into a boy, and another into a girl. The boy they named Ask, which means Ash tree, and the girl they named Embla, which means Elm tree.
But what about the sun and the moon, you may ask? Well. Ask and Embla had children, and one of their children's children had children so beautiful, they named their boy Moon - Mani, they call it - and their girl Sun, or Sol as they call it. The Gods saw this, and they were not happy. They thought it was just too much! So that all might enjoy the beauty of the children, they put the children up in the sky, and they gave Sol the Sun a chariot pulled by two beautiful horses and Mani the Moon a chariot pulled by one stunning horse. The Gods gave these children a special task, too, to light the world.
And to make sure they would keep to their jobs, they put two wolves in the sky with them to chase them and remind them of their tasks. The wolf Skoll chases Mani the Moon, and the wolf Hati chases Sol the Sun. Skoll catches up to Mani, slowly, but Mani always escapes! But one day, the wolves will catch the sun and the moon....