pexels pixabay 270815

Ragnarok, The End of The World; Norse Version

Nekategorizirano / By / 14. June, 2021

As all other nations Norsemen also developed their perception of why the world was as it was. They created Norse mythology, one of the most influential mythologies (it inspired Marvel comics, Lord of The Rings world, Game of Thrones …). A big part of their belief system was Ragnarok, The End Of Times.

THE START OF EVERYTHING

fantasy 2925250 1920

Before the end, there is always the beginning. Norsemen believed that in the beginning, there were two realms and a large void between them. Two “kingdoms,” a kingdom of fire Muspelheim and a kingdom of ice Niflheim, were trying to fill Ginnungagap (the empty void between them). As the ice of Niflheim was more and more filling the gap, the heat of Muspelheim was increasing and starting to melt the ice in the Ginnungagap. As the ice melted, it uncovered Ymir (the name seems popular for giants today, like in the anime Attack on Titans, where it was the name of the first giantness), the giant who was sleeping in the ice. Even when he was uncovered, he slept further, like a person from whom you took his blanket but still refuses to wake up. The heat was still increasing, he started sweating in his sleep, and from his sweat arose the first living creatures.
There was also a huge cow Auoumbla, that emerged from the ice. While the flow of 4 rivers from her udder feed Ymir, she was feeding herself on the block of salted ice, that she licked the ice in the shape of the first god Buri. Buri came to life and united with giantness Bestla and she gave birth to Odin, Vili, and Ve, the gods who were bored and unsatisfied with living in such emptiness. To cure their boredom they decided to kill Ymir (it seems they were not the best “people” to look up for moral decisions).
They succeeded in their intention and the first living creature was now dead. From Ymir’s blood arose oceans, the land from his meat, mountains from his bones, elves and dwarfs from larvae, that lived on his meat. As Ymir’s murderers saw what became of him, they decided to create humans from two tree trunks at the edge of the ocean. Askr (first man) and Embla (first woman) were created. Odin gave them life (the reason why he is also called The Allfather), Vili gave them intelligence and Ve gave them eyes, ears, and mouths. From that pair, all people were born (they seem to be a very productive and “enthusiastic” pair).
After the Midgard (our world) was created from Ymir, the brothers decided to make their own kingdom for the gods. Asgard, the realm they made, became home of Aesir gods while Vanir gods lived in their own kingdom Vanaheimr (sometimes these two groups of gods also mixed).


THE NINE WORLDS

sequoia 4464680 1280

Norsemen believed in the existence of 9 worlds that were connected by The World Tree, Yggdrasil. They believed that on the tree lives squirrel Ratatoskr, the troublemaker that is encouraging a more and more heated argument between the eagle that lives in the treetop and dragon Nidghorr in the roots. He is carrying messages between one and another while also spicing them up to cause more trouble (he enjoys causing trouble for his amusement and with a goal to destroy Yggdrasil).
The first of the nine worlds were already mentioned Niflheim, a realm of ice and cold, and Muspelheim, a realm of heat and fire (“dance” of those two caused everything else to emerge). Asgard is the kingdom of Aesir gods separated from other worlds and only connected with them by Bifrost, rainbow bridge. Around Asgard is a huge wall (it seems like they had some values and ideas similar to Trump’s) and inside of it rules order.

Midgard is our chaotic world where humans are trying to bring order with different laws and rules to get closer to the state of Asgard. Vanaheim is a kingdom of Vanir gods that are more chaotic and connected to nature than the Aesirs (Vanir and Aesir gods were kind of like yin and yang, chaos and order that worked together for balance). In Svartalfheim live dwarfs, the best blacksmiths and inventors there are. Alfheim is full of elves ruled by the god Frey and the last kingdom Hellheim is reserved for the dead and later ruled by Loki’s daughter Hel.

LOKI’S THREE NOTORIOUS CHILDREN


Before speaking about Ragnarok, it is good to know the origin story of some of the antagonists. Most of the gods seem to be douchbags. They laughed at the misfortune of others, killed out of frustration (especially Thor), and did other morally questionable things.
But the ultimate douchbag still seems to be Loki, The Trickster God. He often did something just to piss someone off, like shaving the head of Sufi, Thor’s wife (and then succeded to get her new hair with another trick, that also brought gods Thor’s hammer Mjollnimir together with some other gifts like Odin’s spear). He was clever and always crawled out of the trouble with his brains. Fortunately for him, other gods still saw his usefulness and didn’t kill him for his crimes. The ultimate punishment came to Loki after he did something so outrageous others couldn’t just forget.

Baldur was the most popular god, everyone liked him (which is not the case for good human beings, that no matter how good of a person they are, there will always be someone who has something against them). He was always full of happiness which he shared with others (although Baldur in the videogame God of War, is portrait as a bloodthirsty jerk). Baldur started having dreams about the disaster that would happen to him. When his father Odin found out about dreams, he went to the wise, dead seidr in Helheim, where he saw that the dead are preparing for the celebration. He asked a dead seidr what is this all about and she, unaware of whom she is talking to, told him about their celebration for special guest Baldur, that is going to join the dead soon.
Odin shocked returned to Asgard and shared the experience with others. Baldur’s mother Frigg decided to take things into her own hands. She went to every living and unliving thing in the world, so they all promised they would not harm Baldur. All except mistletoe, which didn’t seem dangerous enough to Frigg, so she wasn’t worried about that, and oh boy was that a mistake.


So Baldur became invulnerable and the gods started playing a new game with him. They throw things at him because everything they throw just bounced from him and didn’t have any effect on him (good old fun, throwing things at someone).
Loki, The Ultimate Jerk, decided to make things even more fun. He disguised himself and spoke to Frigg if Baldur really is invulnerable. Unaware of whom she is speaking to, she told The Trickster about the only thing, that didn’t swear to not harm Baldur and which was all he needed to hear. Like some YouTuber who doesn’t know where the line with pranks is, Loki made a spear out of mistletoe and went to other gods, while they were playing their beloved game Throwing Things In A Popular God (seems like a game kids like to play in school, just that instead of throwing things in unpopular kids, gods reversed the rules and throw them at the most beloved of them all). Loki spoke to the blind god Hodr that felt kind of eliminated from the game, which requires eyesight and offered him the spear to participate in the game. Hodr enthusiastically agreed and threw the spear into Baldur.
Everyone stopped in shock. Baldur, the god loved by all, collapsed dead in front of them. They became scared, not just because of the death of their friend, but also because they knew this means, that their end Ragnarok, isn’t so much distant anymore.
Gods in their sadness (his wife Nana even died out of sadness; she must have been quite a lucky lady to marry someone whom everyone loves) decided to ask Hel (Loki’s daughter) if she can release Baldur from underground. She saw their despair and agreed on the condition that everyone cries after him.
Gods spread the voice about the terms for Baldur’s return and everyone and their mother cried after Baldur. Well, everyone except giantness Tokk (which was actually Loki in disguise), so Baldur stayed underground.

rattlesnake 1892417 1280


When gods found out whose fault Baldurs death was, they searched and found Loki that had hid in the meanwhile. When they captured him, they tied him in the cave and then proceeded to put the poisonous snake above his head, so the poison dripped on his face. His wife Sigyn stayed faithful to him and hold a bowl above him, so the poison wouldn’t drip on him. Every time the bowl was full she went to empty it and at that time Loki would shake from pain so violently to cause earthquakes in the Midgard. That was Loki’s destiny to the end of times.
After that gods couldn’t trust Loki’s children. He was the father of many children and even the mother of one (he succeeded where no other transgender could to this day despite the technology we have). Three of them seemed especially suspicious to the gods. Children of The Trickster God Loki and giantness Angrboda were named Fenrir, Jormungand, and Hel. One night the gods captured them and brought them to Asgard, from where they proceeded to throw Jormungand into the oceans in Midgard, Hel into Helheim, and decided to keep an eye on Fenrir in Asgard.


Hel, the youngest of them, became the ruler of Helheim and took care of the dead that came there. She was quite a strange “beauty.” Half of her face was beautiful, but unfortunately for the dead that saw her every day, this wasn’t the case with the other extremely ugly half. The rest of her body followed a similar concept. From the waist up she seemed attractive and alive but from the waist down her body was dead and falling apart.
Jormungand, the secondborn child, was as mentioned thrown into the ocean. He was growing and growing until he was big enough to wrap himself around the world and bite his own tail. From that fact originates his other name The World Serpent. He and Thor had a beef between themselves, that was going to be solved when the Ragnarok comes.
The oldest of the trinity, Fenrir, was a giant wolf. Asgardians kept him in their kingdom, where he was raised by the god of war Tyr (not Thor there is a huge difference, one is fair and smart and the other one is a not so clever, bloodthirsty meathead that Marvel decided to make more likable). Odin was still concerned about Fenrir, who was getting bigger and bigger, mainly because of the prophecy about Ragnarok (which seems fair considering that Fenrir is the one, who was said to kill him).

pexels steve 682375


Gods decided to trick Fenrir into getting tied. They made it seem like a challenge if he can break the chains. He succeeded every time, so they decided to find help. Dwarfs in Svartalheim fulfilled their wish and made a silk rope from the sound, that cat makes when she walks, woman’s beard, the breath of the fish, bears sinews and birds spittle (they said that this is the reason why those things are so rare nowadays, which is really sad, just imagine all the possible things we could make with the breath of the fish). This time Fenrir was suspicious but still not enough to not accept the challenge when Tyr said he would put his hand into Fenrir’s mouth. They tied the giant wolf up and that was the end of his freedom. He couldn’t break from these “chains” so he bit off the hand that raised him (props to Tyr for keeping his word, as it seems that this was not so common between the gods).
And that was how Aesir gods fulled the hatred of their foretold demise.

THE END OF IT ALL

pexels alex andrews 816608

When Norns, female deities that control fate, wish the Ragnarok will begin. 3 years before Ragnarok, Fimbulvetr will start. Fimbulvetr is going to be composed of 3 consecutive winters without summers in between, which are going to bring hunger and chaos to Midgar (human world), kind of like winter in series and books Game of Thrones. People are going to lose humanity in the cruel wars, that will come. Just a few of them will survive to the start of Ragnarok.


Two wolves, Skoll and Hati, are going to eat the sun and the moon and the darkness will come. Yggdrasil is going to shake, break Fenrir’s and Loki’s chains, and woke up Jormungand. The World Serpent is going to flood the coasts with his movement and release poison into the waters. Loki and his army from Helheim (army full of zombies in Game of Thrones) are going to set sail towards Vigrior, the battlefield for Ragnarok.
The ship, on which the strange crew is going to be, is named Naglfar, a very “pleasant” ship with an interesting, modern, bold design, made from nails of dead people. Ice giants under Hrym and fire giants under Surtr are also going to start marching towards the battlefield and set on fire everything in between. When Heimdall, The Guardian of The Gods, is going to saw them on the horizon, he will blow the horn and everyone across the universe will know that Ragnarok has come. As the giant army will march towards Asgard the Bifrost, rainbow bridge, is going to break and part of the army will fall into their demise.


Odin will have one last consultation with his uncle Mimir’s head, the doors of Valhalla that contained an army of chosen warriors, who were taken there by Valkyries after their death, will open, and the gods will march towards their end.
As the armies will collide, some battles are certain to take place. Odin and Fenrir are going to clash swords (well not really because that wouldn’t be fair, considering that Fenrir is a wolf) and Fenrir will get his revenge for being locked up. After he’ll kill Odin, another opponent will appear. Vidar, son of Odin, is going to face Fenrir and avenge his father’s death.

Surtr, if you watched Marvel’s movie Thor: Ragnarok that was the fire giant there, and Frey are going to battle each other. After a close fight, Frey will fall as the first of the gods (because in the past, he gave away his magical sword).
Thor, The Champion of The Gods, will finally get his fight with Jormungand. After his killing spree upon giants, they are going to face each other. Thor will emerge victoriously, but not until World Serpent poisoned him and took him down with him.
Tyr, god of war and kind of nonbiological Fenrir’s father (he raised him), and Garm, a wolf that protects the dead (like Cerberus in Greek mythology), will also die by the “hand” of each other (“hand” because like Fenrir, Garm also doesn’t have hands).
Armies will destroy each other and no one will win. In the end, Surtr is going to destroy everything with fire and Asgard will be no more.

THE END IS THE BEGINNING

pexels evgeny tchebotarev 4101555

After the arson, a flood will come and extinguish the flames. Another productive and “enthusiastic” pair of humans will survive Ragnarok and repopulate Midgard. New sun, the daughter of the previous one, will take her place in the sky and the descendant of Yggdrasil, which was destroyed, will start growing. 6 gods that survived, Baldur and Hodr (they came back from the dead), Vali and Vidar (Odin’s sons like Baldur), and Modi and Magni (Thor’s sons) are going to find god’s treasures. Among other things, there is going to be a golden chessboard and its figures. Baldur is going to move the first figure and the cycle of the universe will repeat.

Sources/Further Research

Picture Source

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *