Before there were mountains and seas and sky, before there were trees and flowers and grass, before there was anything at all, there stood a cow in the ice.
Her name was Auðhumla, and she was the first cow that had ever existed. She was big as a mountain, white as snow, and her milk flowed in four streams that never ran out.
Beside her lay Ymir, the very first giant, who was as hungry as you are when you have only just started existing. He drank Auðhumla's milk, and Auðhumla let him, because she had plenty of milk, and that is what cows do. They share.
Auðhumla looked around. It was quite empty. No sky. No ground. Just ice and mist and that great emptiness called Ginnungagap. But in the middle of the ice lay a large salt stone, and Auðhumla liked salt.
She licked the stone. Her tongue was warm and large and soft, and the ice melted slowly. On the first day, hair appeared. Just a little hair, out of the stone, like grass from snow. Auðhumla thought that was interesting and kept licking.
On the second day a forehead appeared. And eyebrows. Something alive was taking shape beneath the ice.
On the third day a whole man stepped out of the stone. He was beautiful and strong and he blinked in the faint light as if he had just woken from a very long sleep. His name was Búri, and he was the very first god.
"Thank you," said Búri, and brushed ice from his hair.
Auðhumla said nothing, because she was a cow, and cows say nothing, and that is one of the best things about cows.
Búri had children, and the children had children, and the grandchildren built the whole world from Ymir's body. They made the ground from his flesh and the seas from his blood and the sky from his skull. It was rather disgusting if you thought about it, but it turned out beautiful in the end.
And Auðhumla? No one tells what happened to her. She is not in any more stories. She is not mentioned again. It is as though she simply walked away one day, across the new ground, toward the horizon, and found some grass to eat, and was content with that.
Because that is how it is with cows. They do the most important thing in the entire world, and then they move on and eat grass, and they do not want thanks, and they do not want a saga. They want grass.
But if on a spring day you see meltwater running white down a mountain, and it looks almost like milk, then think of Auðhumla, the very first cow, who licked a god out of the ice and then went looking for grass, and who is probably still chewing somewhere, content and quiet, exactly as cows should be.