In the genesis of Norse mythology Auðhumla is the great cow that fed the primeval giant Ymir. Auðhumla, like Ymir, was born from the frost of Ginnungagap, frost that melted due to the meeting between the icy currents of Niflheimr and the hot ones of Múspellsheimr. Four rivers of milk flowed from her breasts. To feed herself, Auðhumla, what prosopopoeia of spring, began to lick frozen rocks, which she tasted of salt. On the first day she licked them from these rocks a man’s hair emerged, on the second day the head, and on the third a whole person. This, the first creature in human form, was Búri, who fathered Borr. Borr then joined the giantess Bestla, from whom the first gods were born: Odin, Víli and Vé. On his return to Denmark, after his stay in Italy, Nikolaj Abraham Abildgaard became a professor at the Copenhagen Academy in 1777. It was in these years that he represented various episodes of Greek and Nordic mythology, such as this “Ymir Suckling the Cow Auðhumla”, an oil on canvas preserved in the Statens Museum for Kunst in Copenhagen.
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