most of what we know about germanic mythology (the term “germanic” refers to all the peoples who speak a germanic language, norse, german, dutch, all those guys) only survived in the scandinavian places, or at least the meat of it. we don’t actually have nearly any real myths from continental germany, just folk stories (thanks to the brothers grimm), place names, and vague inscriptions from romanized germany witch only mention certain deities and so only point towards their functions and all that. the actual myths we have now come from the farthest reaches of the germanic peoples in the north, like iceland, and even then, those scholars were christians, not heathens, and were only piecing together the fragments that had survived where they lived. i mean, one of the most famous of these scholars, Snorri by name, had a theory that the myths were really about the descendants of troy that settled in europe ::)! but the basic skeleton of the myths was evidently common all over europe, so the peoples of southern germany would have had the same basic mythic imagery as the peoples of iceland, give or take a few names for certain deities and a few cults, like northern odhin equates to wotan of continental germany (although the name wotan goes waaaaaay farther back than the more recent “odin”).
and there is always the danger of certain aspects of the lore being reinterpreted to accommodate the beliefs of the scholars who recorded it. even what we know about the old beliefs of the continental germans comes from roman historians (like tacitus), who blatantly romanized what they recorded. and it’s interesting that tacitus had the same “noble savage” approach to these people as modern civilized historians have had towards indigenous peoples.
but, even with all these obstacles, we’ve been able to work out the basic framework of these myths, with a few chunks of meat here and there. we know for example that the idea of ragnarok and the two female and male survivors and progenators of humans were an old and universal concept of pre christian germanic beliefs.
but what you said about most ancient cultures having a circular concept of time, i think, is actually a plus. i mean, it keeps us connected to the cyclical nature of things rather than having this false concept of “progress” that we get with linear time. cyclical time basically keeps things returning to where they came from, with respect to where they came from, rather than developing the linear concept of manifest destiny that cultures who operate in linear time seem to develop.
but the beginning of the mythology does actually have things growing by themselves.
infact, the world tree yggdrasil, the central supporting structure of the cosmos, grew by itself with roots that reach where “no man knows”. as things evolved (notice i shy from using the term “progressed” ;)), yggdrasil (which means “odins horse”) seems to have simply grown of it’s own accord with the development of the worlds. the whole germanic concept of time is also connected to this via the norns who also have a past beyond time, who nourish the tree with the waters (and i think some sources say mud) from the well urd.
originally, all life came from a meeting of hot and cold, fire and ice. these things all “grew” of their own volition, without the gods. the gods never created the universe, but were produced by it, and only created the worlds of certain beings. and as i pointed out in my previous post, the gods are cultural gods, not only of humans, but of all the peoples (other than humans as well!) in the nine worlds they created. the vanic gods are foreign (and this isn’t just my interpretation) cultural gods of their own right, and literally imposed their culture of agriculture on the nine worlds aaand it’s only after this that odin learns of ragnarok and imbalanced strife develops within the tribe of the aesir and throughout the different worlds.
but the fun of all of this lies within it’s interpretation. i’m not saying my interpretation is universally the “right” one. and of course i’m approaching all this with the intent of “rewilding” it, which means that my interpretation is totally influenced by my intent. as joseph campbell liked to say, all good myths have infinite layers of interpretation but also a timeless truth.