Introduction
Audhumbla is a primordial cow, formed alongside Ymir at the meeting of fire and ice in Ginnungagap. Her milk sustained the giant Ymir, and her own act of licking salty ice blocks for nourishment freed the first ancestor of the gods from the frost.
Nourishing Ymir
Audhumbla's four teats ran with rivers of milk, on which Ymir fed. She herself found nourishment by licking the ice blocks of Ginnungagap, which were salty with rime.
Freeing Buri
As Audhumbla licked the ice on the first day, hair appeared; on the second day, a head; and by the end of the third day, a complete man emerged, free of the ice. This was Buri, handsome, tall and strong, the ancestor of the Aesir gods, and grandfather of Odin.
Note
Audhumbla appears only in Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda and is not directly named in the surviving Poetic Edda, though the broader creation narrative she belongs to (the meeting of fire and ice) is consistent with the older poem Voluspa.