Ragnarok story

Author: Traditional Norse

Time Period: 1001 CE–1500 CE

Country or Culture: Scandinavia

Genre: Myth

PLOT SUMMARY

Throughout time, dark dreams and prophecies have foretold the eventual end of the gods and the universe. For many years, the gods are able to ignore these prophecies, none of the promised omens having yet occurred. This all changes when the trickster god Loki maliciously slaughters the god Balder, a tragic murder that was prophesied as the start of Ragnarok, the battle that will end the gods. Loki is chained to a massive rock as punishment, and the gods have no choice but to wait for their coming destruction.

The great god Odin, wise in his ways, does his best to prepare for the end, even though he knows that the Norse deities will surely lose their lives. As he waits for the arrival of Loki and his army of giants, he gathers the most famed human warriors to assist him. Those humans who do not join Odin learn of their coming fate and abandon hope, leaving their labor unfinished and turning against their own families. Gods and humans alike are caught in a dark despair, the prophesied long winter comes, and for three successive seasons the snow falls in darkness without the relief of summer. Finally, when it seems the depression can run no deeper, Loki and his wolf son, Fenrir, break free of their chains and lead the attack on the gods.

The god Heimdall is the guard of Asgard, the realm of the deities, and he is the first to see Loki and Fenrir arriving on a ship of the dead, with countless giants behind them. As the gods and humans ready themselves at Heimdall’s warning, the giants set to tearing apart the very cosmos itself. Fenrir opens his mouth so wide that he gobbles up the sun, tearing through the landscape and eating sky and earth alike. One giant with a flaming sword swings it so broadly that he scorches all the landscapes of the earth. The gods fight back, but they quickly fall, and even the great thunder god Thor is defeated by a sea serpent. Eventually, the land sinks back into the sea, and the void that preceded creation, called Ginnungagap, is all that remains once more.

The destruction of Ragnarok is total, but it is not lasting. After some time, the land again rises out of the sea, Balder returns from death, and the earth becomes more fertile than it has ever been. In this new, pristine creation, two new humans are created, and the cycle of the cosmos continues onward as it always has.

SIGNIFICANCE

The story of Ragnarok presents all the gods and forces of Norse mythology at their furthest extremes. The wise Odin, known for his knowledge and sagacious learning, is left helpless and despondent in the face of prophesied destruction. Thor, the mightiest warrior, takes hold of his legendary hammer to lead the defense but quickly meets his death. The brave and holy Balder, a figure often described as emanating a white light, is both widely loved and the first to die. Loki, a deity who often only causes mischief and even assists the gods at opportune moments, is transformed into a monster of destruction, leading the forces of chaos against the holy realm of Asgard. Even the landscape itself is pushed to its limits, the primordial nothingness of Ginnungagap overtaking existence and the sea immersing the land in a reversal of the Norse creation myth, which depicts the earth rising out of water.

All of these dramatic events and reversals upend what is commonly presented in Norse mythology. Notably, however, these violent changes are not a surprise but rather the outcome of a prophecy that has always been with the gods, suggesting that all of the deities and cosmic forces had the potential for such upheavals from the start. Ragnarok is a story of creation reaching its natural extremes, the sin of Loki and the heroism of Thor both magnified to their breaking points. Rather than allowing audiences to understand these extremes as signaling a conclusion, however, the myth heavily emphasizes a cyclical view of the world. No sooner has Ragnarok ended and the universe itself ceased to exist than it is born again, Ginnungagap fading into life and Balder, the first to die, becoming the first also to return. Even the name Ragnarok suggests this, being sometimes written as Ragnarøkkr, “twilight of the gods,” rather than the more common Ragnarök, “fate of the gods” or “doom of the gods.”

As striking as the massive destruction of Ragnarok is, the eventual rebirth of humanity and gods alike is equally important to this myth of the Norse doomsday. Upheaval and violent change are devastating forces throughout Norse mythology, but they are also necessary agents of renewal. With the world wiped clean, it can be born again, even more fertile and giving than it was in the past. In turn, this new existence can fade once more, meeting a destructive but essential end in a new Ragnarok that will likewise begin another cycle. While many Western traditions emphasize a linear narrative, Norse mythology eschews this tendency, instead suggesting that no matter how devastating the chaos of Loki and the failure of the heroes may be, the same point at which one thing ends is often the moment at which something better is allowed to begin.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

De Rose, Peter L., and Jane Garry. “Death or Departure of the Gods, Motif A192, and Return, Motif A193.” Archetypes and Motifs in Folklore and Literature: A Handbook. Ed. Garry and Hasan El-Shamy. Armonk: Sharpe, 2005. 17–23. Print.

Pálsson, Hermann. Rev. of Ragnarok: An Investigation into Old Norse Concepts of the Fate of the Gods, by John Stanley Martin. Modern Language Review 71.4 (1976): 975–76. Print.

Price, Neil. “Passing into Poetry: Viking-Age Mortuary Drama and the Origins of Norse Mythology.” Medieval Archaeology 54.1 (2010): 123–56. Print.

“Ragnarok.” Norse-Mythology.org. Dan McCoy, n.d. Web. 3 June 2013.

Stookey, Lorena. Thematic Guide to World Mythology. Westport: Greenwood, 2004. Print.