The Icelandic Creation Myth: A Comparative Analysis

The common motif for the Mesopotamian and Icelandic creation myth are “the world parent”, “a war in heaven” and “the creation of earthly matter from the body of the first mother”, ( The World of Myth, Page 19).
In the Mesopotamian story the world parents are Apsu, who is primordial freshwater, and Tiamat, the great saltwater body, they created land. Lahmu and Lahamu led to the first family Anshar and Kishar with their son Anu, which later led to his family. Ea and his brother killed Apsu and angered Tiamat causing her to create a monster for revenge. The Icelandic creation myth the world parents are Muspell in the south, the place of fire and Niflheim in the north, is the place of ice and snow. Where the climates met there was melting ice

which created the evil frost-giant Ymir, which later created a family of frost giants. “From the melting ice of the center a cow called Audumla was born” (The World of Myth, page 32), she gave birth to Buri and his son Bor married Bestla. Bestla gave birth to three gods Odin, Vili, and Ve, they hated Ymir and they killed her. Both myths start with the parents’ who started family’s end up killing some kind of monster which would be the war in heaven. After they kill the monsters they make the earthly matters out of the first mother.
The significant of the similarity is that the Icelandic myth was written years later than the Mesopotamian myth; the Icelandic possible took the ideas from the Mesopotamian’s and changed the story up a little bit to make it their own. This is why there are the similar motifs and story’s the difference in the two is mostly the names and that they aren’t completely the same story, but they do start with the world parents, have a war in heaven and create the world with a motherly body.