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Poetic Edda

  Othin spake:28.[1] "Fifth answer me well,  if wise thou art called, If thou knowest it, Vafthruthnir, now:What giant first  was fashioned of old, And the eldest of Ymir's kin?"
  Vafthruthnir spake:29.[2] "Winters unmeasured  ere earth was made Was the birth of Bergelmir;Thruthgelmir's son  was the giant strong, And Aurgelmir's grandson of old."
  Othin spake:30. "Sixth answer me well,  if wise thou art called, If thou knowest it, Vafthruthnir, now:Whence did Aurgelmir come  with the giants' kin, Long since, thou giant sage?"
  Vafthruthnir spake:31.[3] "Down from Elivagar  did venom drop, And waxed till a giant it was;
  1. ↑ Ymir's kin: the giants.
  2. ↑ Bergelmir: when the gods slew Ymir in order to make the world out of his body, so much blood flowed from him that all the frost-giants were drowned except Bergelmir and his wife, who escaped in a boat; cf. stanza 35. Of Thruthgelmir ("the Mightily Burning") we know nothing, but Aurgelmir was the frost-giants' name for Ymir himself. Thus Ymir was the first of the giants, and so Othin's question is answered.
  3. ↑ Snorri quotes this stanza, and the last two lines are taken from his version, as both of the manuscripts omit them. Elivagar ("Stormy Waves"): Mogk suggests that this river may have been the Milky Way. At any rate, the venom carried in its waters

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