From which body part of Ymir did the first male and female frost giants emerge? They emerged from his armpits.
In Norse creation mythology, Ymir was the primeval frost jötunn formed when heat from Muspelheim met the ice of Niflheim in Ginnungagap. While Ymir slept, he sweated, and a male and female arose from his left and right armpits. His legs also produced another giant, described as six-headed in the Prose Edda.
These beings became ancestors of the jötnar, often translated as giants. The story is preserved most fully in Snorri Sturluson’s Prose Edda, especially Gylfaginning, written in 13th-century Iceland. It is not a conventional birth story involving two parents; Ymir’s body generates new beings through supernatural processes.
A common mix-up is confusing this episode with the later creation of the world from Ymir’s corpse. Odin, Vili, and Vé killed Ymir and fashioned the earth from his flesh, mountains from his bones, and the heavens from his skull.