Audhumla

Audhumla is an enormous cow inhabiting Ginnungagap of the Asgardian cosmology.

History

At the creation of the world, icy deposits from the eleven rivers Elivagar slowly formed a bridge between the frozen realm of Niflheim and the fiery Muspelheim. There ice melted, and from the ice rose the great frost giant, Ymir, and the great cow Audhumla.

From Audhumla's udder flowed four great rivers of milk. This milk sustained the giant Ymir and his progeny. Audhumla subsisted by licking the salty ice, and by that way uncovered the man Buri, ancestor of the gods of Asgard.

Creative origins

Audhumla appears in Norse mythology. The sole surviving written references to the cow appear in two sections of the Prose Edda, written down by Snorri Sturluston after the Christianization of Iceland.

In Gylfaginning, Audhumla is described just as in Deities and Demigods (3e) (2002). In Skaldskaparmal, Snorri calls Audhumla "the noblest of cows", and gives her name as a kenning or metaphor used in poetry to refer to cows.

Reception and influence

The dwarf Audumla named in Planes of Chaos, Book of Chaos (1994), p.126 is likely named for this cow.