The Doom of the Gods and the Rebirth of the World
Ragnarok, 'the fate of the gods', is the foreordained end of the Norse world, and the gods live and arm themselves in full knowledge of it. It opens with the Fimbulwinter: three winters with no summer between them, when snow drives from every quarter and brothers kill brothers. The wolves that hunt the sun and moon finally catch them and the sky goes dark. The earth shakes, Fenrir snaps his bonds, Jormungandr heaves out of the sea, the ship Naglfar, built from dead men's nails, rides the flood, and the fire giant Surt sweeps up from Muspelheim with a flaming sword. The rainbow bridge breaks beneath the invaders.
Heimdall sounds the Gjallarhorn, and Odin leads the einherjar out through Valhalla's five hundred and forty doors to the plain of Vigrid. Every duel is already fated: Fenrir swallows Odin, and Odin's son Vidar tears the wolf's jaws apart in revenge; Thor kills the Midgard Serpent and dies of its venom nine paces later; Freyr, who once gave away his sword, falls to Surt; Heimdall and Loki slay each other. Then Surt flings fire over everything, and the earth sinks into the sea.
The Voluspa does not end in ash. The earth rises from the water a second time, green with growing things, and waterfalls pour where eagles hunt fish along the cliffs. Baldr and Hod return from the dead; Vidar, Vali, and Thor's sons Modi and Magni, who inherit Mjolnir, live on; the Vafthrudnismal even names the surviving human pair, Lif and Lifthrasir, who hide in Hoddmimir's wood, live on the morning dew, and repeople the world.
