Another son of the primordial giants Bor and Bestla, according to Norse mythology it was Ve, with his brothers Odin and Vili, that created the world from the body of the primordial being Ymir.
Apart from the story of the making of the world, both Ve and Vili only feature in one surviving story from Norse mythology. In this story Odin is temporarily exiled from Asgard for practicing ‘unmanly’ magic. During this time, both Ve and Vili are said to have slept with Odin’s wife Frigg.
Despite their absence in the sagas, Ve and Vili were probably important Celtic gods as there is evidence for their worship in pre-Viking times as well. Odin, Vili and Ve, whose names mean ‘inspiration’, ‘conscious intention’ and ‘sacred’ respectively, represented some of the most basic forces that distinguish society and the Norse cosmos from chaos.
