Jötnar (Giants)

Jötnar (“yote-nar”), or giants, represent the wild forces of nature. They simultaneously personify and dwell in environments that exist beyond the boundaries of human life, such as the icy peaks of mountains, the fiery bowels of volcanoes, and the crushing depths of oceans.

Giants can be friendly, neutral, or hostile towards humans depending on their disposition, and our success with giants depends on meeting their natures where they’re at. Many of the Aesir are jötun or part-jötun, including Odin, Thor, Skadi, and Loki.

“Jötnar” is plural, whereas “jötun” is singular. The English translation, “giant,” is an approximation of these terms and isn’t entirely accurate. What makes jötnar “giant” has less to do with their physical stature and more to do with their energy, which can feel big, loud, and wild in comparison to us.

The primary dwelling of giants is Jötunheim, which is a realm that exists at the edges of everything we know. Jötunheim was created after Ymir was killed and his blood filled ginnungagap, which caused all the giants in the gap to be swept out to the edges of its rim.

Over time, the large presence of giants shrank down into much smaller beings, and eventually trolls become the dominant antagonists of Scandinavian folklore.

Rímþursar, or thurs, are giants that are exceptionally hostile towards humans, embodying things like avalanches, rockslides, or the bitter cold that will kill us from exposure. This word is often translated to “frost-giant,” but like how “giant” is not exactly accurate to jötun, “frost-giant” is not exactly accurate to rímþursar. For one thing, rímþursar are not “gigantic frost-elementals,” but rather “the hostile forces that dwell at and within the frozen edges of the world.”

Rímþursar are called “frost-giants” likely because Norse supernatural beings typically take on the characteristics of the environments they dwell in, being both the personification of those environments and things that are shaped by them.