Ragnarok: What Can We Learn from the Doom of the Gods?

In the 13th century in Iceland a poet and a scholar named Snorri Sturluson wrote two great masterpieces, texts which cast a shadow to this day. In his Poetic Edda and his Prose Edda his beautiful writing captured much of ancient Norse tradition: their people, their history, and their gods.

These texts are a vital resource for our present-day knowledge of Norse traditions, and there is much in there that would not otherwise be known to us. From what earlier sources survive it seems that Snorri, although not above dramatic flourish and invention, was generally faithful to the stories he sought to record. These were the stories of his people after all, well known to all.

And it is Snorri we have to thank for perhaps the greatest story of all in Norse mythology, a series of events known as Ragnarok. Much can be learned from this final, fatal battle for the Norse pantheon, not least about the people who in their fixation told and retold the tale of the doom of their gods.

For, although not without parallel in other religions, there are many peculiarities of this story which set it apart. Were the peoples of Scandinavia so set in their fatalism that they needed a heroic end for their gods? Was death in battle the only glorious death for them?

To be sure, other religions set their gods up with dark adversaries, with the looming implication of an upcoming conflict which will settle things once and for all. The Greek gods have their Titans, the Egyptians their desert hell with Set lurking where no man can survive.

Christians have their hell, too, but for all these other religions the fate of the gods (or angels) hangs ever in the balance. The figures of such mythologies remain static, the final battle always in the future, unknown. Among all the great pantheons it is only the Norse who talk of how their gods die in such detail.

The more one knows about the tale, the more it confounds. At its heart the story of Ragnarok is not one of glory, or victory, or even closure. There is shame, and humiliation in this tale, and not all who face their fate here are granted a fitting end.

Why must the Norse gods die in this way?

An Inevitable End

Ragnarok, the Doom of the Gods, begins with Odin the Allfather, god of war and chief among the Norse pantheon known as the Aesir, seeking to know his future and his end from a witch. The seer looks into the future and prophesies for the god his end, talking of a time of chaos and destruction.

It is clear that social order has broken down. The seer warns of the home of the gods running red with gore, three roosters crowing and then the great guardian Gaumr, the dog that guards the gate of Hel, escaping his bindings he wreak havoc.

On the mortal plane, families are described as turning on each other as all is reduced to a merciless slaughter. Ragnarok is, for the Norse, the ultimate ending and undoing of all they held valuable, and the rejections of the Norse ideals of family, clan and loyalty in this way must have been shocking indeed.

At this point the Aesir are still secure, but the other lands of Norse mythology fall into ruin. The great world serpent Jormungandr thrashes, rendering the seas unnavigable and freeing the dread ship navigable, and Jötunheimr, the lands of the jötnar, are aflame. Yggdrasil, the world tree itself, groans in torment. 

The old foes of the gods, array themselves against the Aesir, roaming free and dressed for war. Hrym, shieldbearer of the giants, leads his army from the east, and fire giants lead by Surtr with his flaming sword advance from the south. Worst of all, the great wolf Fenrir, tricked and trapped by an Aesir named Tyr, has loosed his bonds and stands free, a fearsome adversary beyond the strength of any god.

The gods know that the battle is helpless, but they sally forth to meet their doom. Odin is the first to die, eaten by Fenrir, who then in turn dies at the hands of Odin’s son Víðarr, who in his rage and grief manages to open the wolf’s massive jaws wide and stab it through its heart with a spear.

Thor faces off against the world serpent Jormungandr and is victorious, crushing the snake but being grievously wounded in the process. Thor is only able to take nine steps from the body of the snake before he, too, falls, overwhelmed by the many venomous bites he has received.

Loki, imprisoned and tortured for his part in the death of the god Baldr, is freed and faces off against the god Heimdall. Both kill each other in mortal combat.

The noble god Freya faces off against Surtr but is no match for the fire giant, and with this defeat for the Aesir the Sun itself turns black. The lands hiss with steam and flames rise as the stars are blotted out with smoke. All is ruin.

Amidst this destruction there is hope, however. The remaining Aesir, broken and leaderless, retreat to a meeting place known as the field of Iðavöllr. Here they remember their lost glory, before seeing the return of crops and life without their intervention, a message at the end that life will go on, even without their stewardship.

This is the most straightforward vision of Ragnarok. Other poems and the Prose Edda give further details, clearly pointing to a well-known mythology from which Snorri was drawing. 

The fates of other figures of Norse mythology are given in these texts. Skoll and Hati, the wolf and his companion who chase the Sun and Moon, finally catch their quarry: the Sun and the Moon are swallowed whole. But all texts agree that, after the doom of the gods, there will be a rebirth, a new world for the survivors.

Some of these tales are easy to gloss. Fire and steam, the sun and the stars being blotted out, are easy concepts to understand for a people who live on a volcanic island. Similarly the treacherous seas which surround them in all directions are a constant background danger, the world serpent caring not if great ships are destroyed amidst the maelstrom.

But Snorri specifically refers to Ragnarok as the end of an age. Perhaps it is in this rebirth that the Norse found hope, with the understanding that the end of their gods was not the end of their world. 

It seems that in the move to something new they found hope, and that this, rather than the ending of their old gods, is the true message of the story. They would feel the loss of their heroes keenly. But they, as a people, would endure.

Top Image: Odin fights Fenrir in Ragnarok (Den Unge Herr Holm (Kim Diaz Holm) / CC BY 4.0)