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Ragnarok: The Fate of the Gods
Posted on Wednesday, August 30, 2006 (CDT) by Thoth
 In Norse mythology, Ragnarok ( "fate of the gods") is the battle at the end of the world. It will be waged between the gods (the Aesir, led by Odin) and the evils (the fire giants, the Jotuns and various monsters, led by Loki). Not only will the gods, giants, and monsters perish in this apocalyptic conflagration, but almost everything in the universe will be torn asunder.
In the Viking warrior societies, dying in battles was a fate to admire, and this was carried over into the worship of a pantheon in which the gods themselves were not everlasting, but would one day be overthrown, at Ragnarok.
Exactly what would happen, who would fight whom, and the fates of the participants in this battle were well known to the Norse peoples from their own sagas and skaldic poetry. The Voluspa (Prophesy of the Völva (shaman)), the first lay of the Poetic (or Elder) Edda, dating from about 1000 AD, spans the history of the gods, from the beginning of time to Ragnarok, in 65 stanzas.
The Prose
(or Younger) Edda, written two centuries later by Snorri Sturluson,
describes in detail what would take place before, during, and even
after the battle.
What is unique about
Ragnarok as an armageddon tale is that the gods already know through
prophesy what is going to happen: when the event will occur, who will
be slain by whom, and so forth. They even realize that they are
powerless to prevent Ragnarok. But they will still bravely and
defiantly face their bleak destiny.
Portents
Ragnarok will be preceded
by the Fimbulwinter, the winter of winters. Three such winters will
follow each other with no summer in between. As a result, conflicts and
feuds will break out, and all morality will disappear.
The wolf Skoll and his
brother Hati will finally devour Sol and her brother Mani respectively,
after a perpetual chase. The stars will vanish from the sky, plunging
the earth into darkness.
The earth will shudder, so
violently that trees will be uprooted, and mountains will fall, and
every bond and fetter will snap and sever, freeing Loki and his son
Fenrir. This terrible wolf's slavering mouth will gape wide open, so
wide that his lower jaw scrapes against the ground and his upper jaw
presses against the sky. He will gape even more widely if there is
room. Flames will dance in his eye and leap from his nostrils.
Eggther, watchman of the
Jotuns, will sit on his grave mound and strum his harp, smiling grimly.
The red cock Fjalar will crow to the giants and the golden cock
Gullinkambi will crow to the gods. A third cock, rust red, will raise
the dead in Hel.
Jormungand, the Midgard
serpent, will rise from the deep ocean bed to proceed towards the land,
twisting and writhing in fury on his way, causing the seas to rear up
and lash against the land. With every breath, the serpent will spew
venom, staining the earth and the sky in poison.
From the east, the army of
Jotuns, led by Hrym, will leave their home in Jotunheim and sail the
grisly ship Naglfar, which will be set free by the tsunami and
flooding, towards the battlefield of Vigrid.
From the north, a second
ship will set sail towards Vigrid, with Loki, now unbound, as the
helmsman, and the ghastly inhabitants of Hel as the deadweight.
The world will be in
uproar, the air will quake with booms, blares and echoes. Amid this
turmoil, the fire giants of Muspelheim, led by Surt, will advance from
the south and tear apart the sky itself as they too, close in on
Vigrid, leaving everything in their path going up in flames. As they
ride over Bifrost, the rainbow bridge will crack and break behind them.
Garm, the hellhound bound in front of Gnipahellir, will also get free.
He will join the fire giants in their way towards Vigrid.
So all the Jotuns and all
the inmates of Hel, Fenrir, Jormungand, Garm, Surt and the blazing sons
of Muspelheim, will gather on Vigrid. They will all but fill that plain
that stretches one hundred and twenty leagues in every direction.
Meanwhile, Heimdall, being
the first of the gods to see the enemies approaching, will blow his
Giallar horn, sounding such a blast that it will be heard throughout
the nine worlds. All the Gods will wake and at once meet in council.
Then Odin will mount Sleipnir and gallop to Mimir's spring and consult
Mimir on his own and his people's behalf.
Then, Yggdrasil, the world
ash, will shake from root to summit. Everything in earth and heaven and
Hel will quiver. All Aesir and Einherjar will don their battle dresses.
This vast host will march towards Vigrid and Odin will ride at their
head, wearing a golden helmet and a shining corselet, brandishing
Gungnir.
The Final Battle
Odin will make straight for
Fenrir; and Thor, right beside him, will be unable to help because
Jormungand, his old enemy, will at once attack him. Freyr will fight
the fire giant Surt, but will become the first of all gods to lose as
he has given his own good sword to his servant Skirnir. It will still
be a long struggle though, before Freyr will succumb. Tyr will manage
to kill Garm, but will be so severely wounded that he will die shortly
after the hound. Heimdall will encounter Loki, and neither survive the
evenly-matched encounter. Thor will kill Jormungand with his hammer
Mjollnir, but only be able to stagger back nine steps before falling
dead himself, poisoned by the venom that Jormungand spews over him.
Odin will fight with his mighty spear Gungnir against Fenrir but will
finally be eaten by the wolf after a long battle. To avenge his father,
Vidar will immediately come forward and place one foot on the wolf's
lower jaw. On this foot he will be wearing the shoe which he has been
making since the beginning of time; it consists of the strips of
leather which men pare off at the toes and heels of their shoes. With
one hand he will grasp the wolf's upper jaw and tear its throat
asunder, killing it at last.
Then, Surt will burn the
whole world with fire. Death will come to all manner of things. The sun
will go black and the stars will cast down from the heavens. Fumes will
reek and flames will burst, scorching the sky with fire. The earth will
sink into the sea.
Aftermath
After the destruction, a
new earth will arise out of the sea, green and fair. Corn will ripen in
fields that were never sown. The meadow Idavoll, in the now-destroyed
Asgard, will have been spared. The sun will reappear as Sol, before
being swallowed by Skoll, give birth to a daughter as fair as she
herself. This maiden daughter will pursue her mother's road in the new
sky.
A few gods will survive the
ordeal: Odin's brother Vili, Odin's sons Vidar and Vali, Thor's sons
Modi and Magni, who will inherit their father's magic hammer Mjollnir,
and Honir, who will hold the wand and foretell what is to come. Balder
and his brother Hod, who dies prior to Ragnarok, will come up from Hel
and dwell in Odin's former hall, Valhalla, in the heavens. Meeting at
Idavoll, these gods will sit down together, discuss their hidden lore,
and talk over many things that had happened, including the evil of
Jormungand and Fenrir. In the waving grass, they will find the golden
chessboards that the Aesir used to own, and gaze at them in wonder.
(None of the goddesses were mentioned in various accounts of the
aftermath of Ragnarok, but there are assumptions that Frigg, Freya and
the other goddesses had survived.)
Two humans will also escape
the destruction of the world by hiding themselves deep within
Yggdrasil—some say Hodmimir's Wood— where Surt's sword cannot destroy.
They will be called Lif and Lifthrasir. Emerging from their shelter,
they will live on morning dew and will repopulate the human world. They
will worship their new pantheon of gods, led by Balder.
There will still be many
halls to house the souls of the dead. According to the 'Prose Edda',
another heaven exists south of and above Asgard, called Andlang, and a
third heaven further above that, called Vidblain; and these places will
offer protection while Surt's fire burns the world. According to both
'Eddas', after Ragnarok, the best place of all will be Gimli, a
building fairer than the sun, roofed with gold, in the heaven. There,
the gods will live at peace with themselves and each other. There will
be Brimir, a hall on Okolnir ("never cold"), where plenty of good drink
will be served. And there will be Sindri, an excellent hall made wholly
of red gold, on Nidafjoll ("dark mountains"). The souls of the good and
virtuous will live in these halls.
The 'Prose Edda' also
mentions another hall called Nastrond ("corpse strand"). That place in
the underworld will be as vile as it is vast: no sunlight will reach
it; all its doors will face north; its walls and roof will be made of
wattled snakes, with their heads facing inward, spewing so much poison
that it runs in rivers in the hall. Here, oath breakers, murderers, and
philanderers will wade through those rivers forever.
And, in the worst place of
all, Hvergelmir, Nidhogg, also a survivor of Ragnarok, will bedevil the
bodies of the dead, sucking blood from them.
After all, in this new
world, wickedness and misery no longer exist and gods and men will live
together in peace and harmony. The descendants of Lif and Lifthrasir
will inhabit Midgard.
Copyright: ragnarok.kccricket.net
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