From the contrasting forces of cold and heat, a huge being is created. Reflecting his creation, he is both male and female, and his name is Ymir, which probably means "the Two-Fold One." The name accords well with the report by Tacitus that the first ancestor of the Germans was Tvisto (Twin Being). Ymir is fed by a frost-born cow, Auðumla. He sweats, and from his underarm deposits the frost-giants are created. Later, he will be killed and his body and blood will constitute the earth and oceans.

The world tree is an old and central aspect of Norse cosmology. Passage to the Otherworld via the world tree is a common element in Eurasian shamanism, and the image may have given impetus to the idea of multiple world-discs stacked one on the other. (Compare also the ascending levels of the Christian stavkirke.)

The cow Auðumla licks a block of frozen saltwater into human shape; it animates as Búri. He begets Borr, who fathers three gods, the "Sons of Borr," with the giantess Bestla. They kill Ymir; his blood creates the seas, his body the land, and his skull the sky. The latter is held aloft by four dwarves, creatures bred in Ymir's body. Three creator gods, apparently the same "Sons of Borr," walk along the seashore and find two driftwood trees; they breathe life into them and the first humans are created. In the Vøluspá the three are named Óðinn, Lóðurr, and Hœnir; elsewhere, Óðinn, Vili, and Vé. Whatever their names, the two brothers of Óðinn are obscure; some scholars have linked them to Loki and Heimdall.