What did the maggots in Ymir's flesh become?

The maggots in Ymir’s flesh became dwarfs by the decision of the gods.

Snorri Sturluson’s Gylfaginning describes the dwarfs as first taking shape in Ymir’s flesh, where they resembled maggots. After the gods discussed their origin, they granted these beings consciousness, intelligence, and a humanlike form. The dwarfs then lived in the earth and in rocks.

This account connects dwarf-kind directly to the dismemberment of Ymir. Odin and his brothers use the dead giant’s body to create the world, and the strange life emerging from his flesh becomes another part of the new cosmic order. The answer is therefore “dwarfs,” not giants, even though Ymir himself is the ancestor of the jötnar.

The tradition is not entirely uniform across surviving sources. Völuspá links dwarfs with figures named Brimir and Bláinn and with divine creation, while Snorri supplies the vivid maggot-to-dwarf narrative. That difference reflects the way medieval authors combined older mythic poems with explanatory prose.