Vili and Vé

From Bor and Besla were born the first three gods, Odin, Honir, and Lodur.

Sometimes they are called Odin, Vili, and Vey.

These three gods slew Ymir.

He was so vast a being that when he was killed, the blood from the wound caused a great flood that killed all the giants, save for two, Bergolmir and his wife.

I think they're going to try and...

See what it means here.

But anyway, it says moving on in the creation narrative, Odin with his two brothers, Vili and Ve, slay the first true being Ymir and from his corpse fashion, not only the world of man, Midgard, but the scaffolding of the cosmos.

From the very beginning, the Aesir defined the boundaries of world by violence.

Bor and Bestla had three sons.

The first was named Odin, the second was Vili, and the third was Ve.

And Snorri adds, in his own voice, that Odin and his brothers are rulers of heaven and earth, and that Odin is the name of the greatest and most glorious being that people know.

The names of the three brothers carry meanings of their own.

Vili means will, and vei is an old word for a holy place, a shrine or sanctuary.

And Odin, in Old Norse Óðinn, comes from the word Óðr, which meant fury, frenzy, inspiration, the wild ecstatic state of the poet and the seer and the warrior in battle.

Inspiration, will, and the sacred, the three brothers who would shape the world.

Later in the same poem, when the first humans are given life, Odin's companions are named differently.

He was the ancestor of the kind Aesir.

For all father Odin and his brothers Vili and Ve, the first of the gods, were his grandsons, and as soon as they were born they became the enemies of the race of the giants.

Now, after a few giant years, ages and ages of time as we reckon it, there was a great battle, for Odin and his brothers wished to destroy all the evil in the world and to leave only good.

They attacked the wicked giant Ymir.

He begat a son called Bor, who wedded the woman named Bestla, daughter of Butorn the giant, and they had three sons.

One was Odin, the second Vili, and the third Ve.

And this is my belief, that he, Odin, with his brothers, must be ruler of heaven and earth.

We hold that he must be so called.

Thus sang Ulfr Uggason: There, I think, the Valkyrs follow, and ravens Victorious Odin to the blood of holy Baldr.

With old tales the hall was painted.

Thus sang Egil Skallagrimson: No victims for this to Vili's brother the high God I offer, glad to behold him; Yet hath Mimir's friend on me bestowed Amends of evil, which I account better: He has given me the art, he the wolf's opposer Accustomed to battle, of blemish blameless.

Here he is called high God and friend of Mimir and adversary of the wolf.