Líf and Lífþrasir

Attested in the Eddic corpus and summarized by later compilers, two humans named Líf (literally 'life') and Lífþrasir (a compound glossed in medieval lexica and modern scholarship as something like 'lover/longer for life') are foretold to survive the cataclysm of Ragnarök by hiding in Hoddmímis holt. After the fires and devastation subside the pair emerge and become the ancestors from whom post‑Ragnarök humanity descends, a motif often read as a repetition of the original anthropogeny (cf. Ask and Embla). Scholarly discussion identifies the refuge Hoddmímis holt with or adjacent to the world‑tree (Yggdrasil / Mímameiðr) in some interpretations (Simek; Larrington).

The primary Old Norse sources do not provide physical description beyond identifying them as 'two humans.' Later artistic traditions commonly depict them as a man and a woman (sometimes with a child), but such imagery is not attested in the Eddas themselves and gendered specifics are conventional rather than explicit in the surviving stanzas and Snorri's account.

The extant texts ascribe no supernatural powers to Líf and Lífþrasir beyond survival and subsequent fecundity: they hide in Hoddmímis holt during the fires of Surt (Gylfaginning ch. 53 / Snorri's summary) or are sheltered there (Poetic Edda: Grímnismál / Vafþrúðnismál attestations) and 'have the morning dew for food' while concealed (Poetic Edda citation). Their narrative role is reproductive and genealogical: from them 'men shall be born' and a renewed human population will descend.