Snorri’s Prologue in the Prose Edda uses a Christian perspective to examine the violence in God’s creation from a more Christian perspective and uses the Norse viewpoint of that same violence and creation in the Gylfaginning, making religion and beliefs tangible. Specifically, the Prologue gives its readers the underlying understanding to the creation stories by using Snorri’s Christian background and Biblical stories and the Gylfaginning offers a look on how the observations of nature created the Norse’s beliefs and beginnings. Snorri also provides his reader’s with the foundation of Christian beliefs as a way to create a way to recognize the relationship between Christianity and the Norse cosmology
Snorri’s Prologue explains the Norse had …show more content…
The Gylfaginning describes the destruction of Ymir to create the world shows the necessity of aggression and battle in Norse life in order to survive (16). The Norse literally believed that the answers they sought could not only be found in the world around them, but that stories were written in the flesh, that what happens to the physical body can be told to others. Within the Gylfaginning, Odin and his brothers Vé and Vili work together to destroy Ymir, and the brothers do obliterate Ymir in a bloody and violent manner (16). Form each “broken” and “blood[y]” part of Ymir comes the beauty of “the earth” and “sea” creating the foundation and order of the world (16). The violent creation myth in Gylfaginning reveals the beauty and natural order of the world “fashioned from the flesh,” and what could be more intimate than creating the earth from the very flesh of another (16)? A tangible creation story also creates a direct and very personal link to the people and their creators. These physical and intimate relationships further support the necessity of violence in the world around them as even Ymir’s “bones were broken” to create the changing landscape of rocks and dirt, further making the elements of nature and their god’s creation real (16). Further, this transformation is a direct result of Ymir’s violent death, crating an understanding of something that was once lost, strange, and confusing. Balance is needed in all things, life and
Snorri’s Prologue explains the Norse had …show more content…
The Gylfaginning describes the destruction of Ymir to create the world shows the necessity of aggression and battle in Norse life in order to survive (16). The Norse literally believed that the answers they sought could not only be found in the world around them, but that stories were written in the flesh, that what happens to the physical body can be told to others. Within the Gylfaginning, Odin and his brothers Vé and Vili work together to destroy Ymir, and the brothers do obliterate Ymir in a bloody and violent manner (16). Form each “broken” and “blood[y]” part of Ymir comes the beauty of “the earth” and “sea” creating the foundation and order of the world (16). The violent creation myth in Gylfaginning reveals the beauty and natural order of the world “fashioned from the flesh,” and what could be more intimate than creating the earth from the very flesh of another (16)? A tangible creation story also creates a direct and very personal link to the people and their creators. These physical and intimate relationships further support the necessity of violence in the world around them as even Ymir’s “bones were broken” to create the changing landscape of rocks and dirt, further making the elements of nature and their god’s creation real (16). Further, this transformation is a direct result of Ymir’s violent death, crating an understanding of something that was once lost, strange, and confusing. Balance is needed in all things, life and