Líf and Lífþrasir

In Norse mythology, Líf (identical with the Old Norse feminine noun meaning "life, the life of the body") and Lífþrasir (Old Norse masculine name from líf and þrasir. Lexicon Poëticum defines this name as "Livæ amator, vitæ amans, vitæ cupidus", "Líf's lover, lover of life, zest for life"), sometimes anglicized as Lif and Lifthrasir—female and male respectively—are two humans who are foretold to survive the events of Ragnarök by hiding in a wood called Hoddmímis holt, and after the flames have abated, to repopulate the newly risen and fertile world. Líf and Lífþrasir are mentioned in the Poetic Edda, compiled in the thirteenth century from earlier traditional sources, and the Prose Edda, written in the 13th century by Snorri Sturluson. Scholarly theories have been proposed about the underlying meaning and origins of the two names.

In the poem Vafþrúðnismál, collected in the Poetic Edda, the god Odin poses a question to the jötunn Vafþrúðnir, asking who among mankind will survive when the winter at the end of the world Fimbulvetr occurs. Vafþrúðnir responds that they will be Líf and Lífþrasir, that the two will have hidden in the wood of Hoddmímis Holt, they will consume the morning dew as food, and "from them generations will spring".

In chapter 53 of the Prose Edda book Gylfaginning, High tells Gangleri (king Gylfi in disguise) that two people, Líf and Lífþrasir, will lie hid in Hoddmímis Holt during "Surt's fire", and that "from these people there will be descended such a great progeny that the world will be inhabited." The above mentioned stanza of Vafþrúðnismál is then quoted.

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