Fimbultyr, a real god

I was under the impression that Fimbultyr was a kenning of Odin.

Unless you're suggesting Snorri made Odin up?

humm you maybe right about that but just the way he wrote it makes it sound different to me then that or maby it's just the translation i have read

If you don't mind, which translation did you read? Sometimes the wording is a little confusing, and it gets messed up within the various translations. I know there was some confusion surrounding the name Fimbultyr, which I think was translated to mean the equivalent of "Mighty God", but most people just associated it with Odin.

Most translations I've heard are a clear attempt to Christianize the Nordic beliefs.

The text claim that he emerges post-Ragnarok as a one "true god" and all that jazz. Personally I think it's bogus, not another name for Odin.

The Prose Edda: Norse Mythology by Snorri mentions Fimbultyr as being there in the beginning when creation occured, though makes a slight difference noted between him and Odin.

The Younger Edda 1880, translated by Rasmus B. Andersen, refers to Fimbultyr as the "unknown God" and mentions him twice as "In the beginning, before the Heaven and Earth and the Sea were created, the great abyss Ginungagap was without form and void, and the spirit of Fimbultyr moved upon the face of the deep.." and then again "But the serpent Loki was more subtle than any one within or without Asgard, whom Fimbultyr had made.."

Primitive history, from the Creation to Cadmus by William Williams mentions Odin being linked to Fimbul Tyr. The connection is made here because in the Volsupa, around line 60 I think, they says "Fimbultyr's old runes" referring to Odin and his runes.

Here's a discussion showing some of the various translations on it:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/voluspa_studies/message/1733

Ah, gotcha. I always heard it was an attempt to create a new god that was in reference to the Christian god. But thank you for clearing this up for us.

i would have to agree with that all my meditations and scrying on the subject have led me to believe the same thing if you look at the time it was written and the time people who did write it it makes sense this was right before the wtch burnings happened and right after Norway and Scandinavia went christian

the translation i got was the free one off the kindle website i belive it was written by rasmus b anderson

Fimbul is old norse for great
Fimbultyr would be great tyr. There are a accounts that tyr was a chef God among the northmen especially the saxons who seemed to hold tyr above all others. Just like most other pagans there were great cults that targeted particular gods our pantheon is a collection of our ancestral gods. Somewhere along the way tyr has been dubbed he who would speak us into being it seems

every written source on the gods was written after the christianization of scandinavia. before then, the myths were told orally. the codex regius was put together in the late 1200s, and the prose edda only a few decades before that.