The primordial ancestor of the gods, freed from the ice of the earliest age by the cow Auðhumla, whose son Borr fathered Óðinn, Vili, and Véi.
Búri is the oldest of all gods and the first being of divine nature in the Norse creation account. He was enclosed in a salt-lick of ice and licked free by the primordial cow Auðhumla over three days. On the first day his hair appeared, on the second his head, and on the third he stood forth in full form.
Búri fathered a son named Borr, though the sources say nothing of how this occurred. Borr in turn married the giantess Bestla and with her fathered the three gods Óðinn, Vili, and Véi. Búri is thus the divine primal substance that united with the world of giants to produce the divine lineage that then shaped the cosmos. He is mentioned only in Gylfaginning 5 and has no myths attached to his person.
Sources in the Eddas
- Gylfaginning 5
- The sole surviving source for Búri's origin and lineage. Own translation.
Interpretive traditions
A What we know
Búri's emergence from the ice through Auðhumla's licking is attested in the Gylfaginning and represents the foundational stratum of Norse cosmogony.
C What we do not know
Búri is sometimes interpreted as a personified primal substance rather than a divine figure in the strict sense, and his complete absence from all other poetry reinforces this reading.