Buri

Buri

Appeal: Fathers, Ancestors, Grandfathers

                                                 

Buri ('father') is the God formed by the cow Audumla licking the ice which collected within Ginnungagap.  He is the father of Bor, and thus the Grandfather of Odin, Ve and Vili.  He is the progenitor of all the Race of Gods.  Buri was formed out of the solidification of primal matter, potential and energy.

 

Before there was soil, sky or any green thing, there was only the gaping abyss of Ginnungagap.  This chaos of perfect silence and darkness lay between the homeland of elemental fire, Muspelheim, and the homeland of elemental ice, Niflheim.

Frost from Niflheim and billowing flames from Muspelheim crept toward each other until they met in Ginnungagap.  Amid the hissing and sputtering, the fire melted the ice, and the drops formed themselves into Ymir, the first of the godlike giants.  Ymir was a hermaphrodite and could reproduce asexually; when he sweated, more giants were born.

As the frost continued to melt, a cow, Audhumbla, emerged from it.  She nourished Ymir with her milk, and she, in turn, was nourished by salt-licks in the ice.  Her licks slowly uncovered Buri, the first of the Aesir tribe of Gods.

The only extant source of this myth is Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda.  Audumbla, a cow, licked the rocky ice-blocks, which were salty; and the first day that she licked the blocks, there came forth from the blocks in the evening a man's hair; the second day, a man's head; the third day the whole man was there.  He was named Buri: he was fair of feature, great and mighty.  He begat a son called Bor.  Bor had three sons who were Gods: Odin, Vili and Ve.

 

There are some uncertainties if Buri was a God or a Giant.  And there is no further information on him after the creation of the world.

 

Grandfather teach me stillness as the grasses are stilled with light.
Grandfather teach me suffering as old stones suffer with memory.
Grandfather teach me humility as blossoms are humble with beginning.
Grandfather teach me caring as the mother who secures her young.
Grandfather teach me courage as the tree which stands alone.
Grandfather teach me limitation as the ant which crawls on the ground.
Grandfather teach me freedom as the eagle which soars in the sky.
Grandfather teach me resignation as the leaves which die in the fall.
Grandfather teach me regeneration as the seed which rises in the spring.
Grandfather teach me to forget myself as melted snow forgets its life.
Grandfather teach me to remember kindness as dry fields weep with rain.

 

Sage God

Creation