Editing Ymir (section)

===Lost sources===
As ''Gylfaginning'' presents a cohesive narrative that both quotes stanzas from various poems found in the ''Poetic Edda'' (as outlined above) as well as contains unique information without a provided source (such as [[Auðumbla]]); scholars have debated to what extent Snorri had access to outside sources that no longer survive and to what extent he synthesized a narrative from the material he had access to.<ref name=Turville-Petre-1964/>{{rp|pages=276–277}}<ref name=Davidson-1990/>{{rp|page=199}}

Regarding the situation, scholar [[Gabriel Turville-Petre]] comments (1964) that "at the beginning, according to Snorri's text of the poem, there was nothing but a void, although according to other texts, the giant Ymir existed already then. Considering how Ymir (Aurgelmir) was said to have taken shape, both Snorri and the ''Vafþrúðnismál'', we may think that Snorri followed the better version of Vǫluspá" and, regarding Snorri's account of the cosmogenesis in general, that "from these sketches of the poetic sources from which he chiefly drew it is obvious that Snorri described several incidents which cannot be traced to them, at least in their extant forms". [[Gabriel Turville-Petre|Turville-Petre]] cites Snorri's account of Auðumbla as a prime example, noting Indo-European parallels ([[Persia]]n and [[Vedic]]) and an [[Egyptian mythology|Egyptian]] parallel in the Egyptian goddess [[Hathor]].<ref name=Turville-Petre-1964/>{{rp|pages=276–277}}

[[Hilda Ellis Davidson|H.R.E. Davidson]] (1964) comments that "the original form of the creation myth in the north is not easy to determine. Snorri knew of at least three separate accounts".<ref name=Davidson-1990/>{{rp|page=198}}