The Norse Creation Myth
Burning ice, biting flame; that is how life began. In the south is a realm called Muspell. That region flickers with dancing flames. It seeths and it shines. No one can endure it except those born into it. Black Surt is there; he sits on the furthest reach of that land, brandishing a flaming sword; he is already waiting for the end when he will rise and savage the gods and whelm the whole world with fire.
In the north is a realm called Niflheim. It is packed with ice and covered with vast sweeps of snow. In the heart of that region lies the spring Hvergelmir and that is the source of eleven rivers named the Elivagar; they are cool Svol and Gunnthra the defiant, Fjorm and bubbling Fimbulthul, fearsome Slid and storming Hrid, Sylg, Ylg, broad Vid and Leipt which streaks like lightning, and freezing Gjoll.
Between these realms there once stretched a huge and seeming emptiness; this was Ginnungagap. The rivers that sprang from Hvergelmir streamed into the void. The yeasty venom in them thickened and congealed like slag, and the rivers turned into ice. That venom also spat out drizzle- an unending dismal hagger that, as soon as it settled turned into rime. So it went on until all the northern part of Ginnungagap was heavy with layers of ice and hoar frost, a desolate place haunted by gusts and skuthers of wind.
Just as the northern part was frozen, the southern was molten and glowing, but the middle of Ginnungagap was as mild as hanging air on a summer evening. There, the warm breath drifting north from Muspell met the rime from Niflheim, it touched it and played over it, and the ice began to thaw and drip. Life quickened in those drops, and they took the form of a giant. He was called Ymir.
Ymir was a frost giant; he was evil from the first. While he slept, he began to sweat. A man and a woman grew out of the ooze under his left armpit, and one of his legs fathered a son on the other leg. Ymir was the forefather of all frost giants, and they called him Aurgelmir.
As more of the ice in Ginnungagap melted, the fluid took the form of a cow. She was called Audumla. Ymir fed off the four rivers of milk that coursed from her teats, and Audumla fed off the ice itself. She licked the salty blocks and by the evening of the first day a man's hair had come out of the ice. Audumla licked more and by the evening of the second day a man's head had come. Audumla licked again and by the evening of the third day the whole man had come. His name was Buri.
Buri was tall and strong and good-looking. In time he had a son called Bor and Bor married a daughter of Bolthor, one of the frost giants. Her name was Bestla and she mothered three children, all of them sons. The first was Odin, the second was Vili, and the third was Ve.
All this was in the beginning, before there were waves of sand, the sea's cool waves, waving grass. There was no earth and no heaven above; only Muspell and Niflheim and, between them, Ginnungagap.
The three sons had no liking for Ymir and the growing gang of unruly. brutal frost giants, as time went on, they grew to hate them. At last they attacked Ymir and killed him. His wounds were like springs; so much blood streamed from them, and so fast, that the flood drowned all the frost giants except Bergelmir and his wife. The embarked in their boat – it was made out of a hollowed tree trunk – and rode on a tide of gore.
Odin and Vil and Ve hoised the body of the dead frost giant onto their shoulders and carted it to the middle of Ginnungagap. That is where they made the world of his body. They shaped the earth from Ymir's flesh and the mountains from his unbroken bones; from his teeth and jaws and the fragments of his shattered bones they made the rocks and boulders and stones.
Odin and Vili and Ve used the welter of blood to make landlocked lakes and to make the sea. After they had formed the earth, they laid the rocking ocean in a ring right around it. And it is so wide that most men would dismiss the very idea of crossing it.
The three brothers raised Ymir's skull and made the sky from it and placed it so that its four corners reached to the ends of the earth. They set a dwarf under each corner, and their names are East and West and North and South. The Odin and Vili and Ve seized on the sparks and glowing embers from Muspell and called them the sun and moon and stars; they put them high in Ginnungagap to light the heaven above and earth below. In this way the brothers gave each star its proper place; some were fixed in the sky, others were free to follow the paths appointed for them.
The earth was round and lay within the ring of the deep sea. Along the strand the sons of Bor marked out tracts of land and gave them to the frost giants and the rock giants; and there, in Jotunheim, the giants settled and remained. They were so hostile that the three brothers built an enclosure further inland around a vast area of the earth. They shaped it out of Ymir's eyebrows, and called it Midgard. The sun warmed the stones in the earth there, and the ground was green with sprouting leeks. The sons of Bor used Ymir's brains as well, flung them up into the air and turned them into every kind of cloud.
One day, Odin and Vili and Ve were striding along the frayed edge of the land, where the earth meets the sea. They came across two fallen trees with their roots ripped out of the ground; one was an ash, the other an elm. Then the sons of Bor raised them and made from them the first man and woman. Odin breathed into them the spirit of life; Vili offered the sharp wits and feeling hearts; Ve gave them the gifts of hearing and sight. The man was called Ask and the woman Embla and they were given Midgard to live in. All the families and nations and races of men descended from them.
One of the giants living in Jotunheim, Narvi, had a daughter called Night who was dark eyed, dark haired and swarthy as the rest of her family. She married three times. Her first husband was a man called Naglfari and their son was Aud: her second husband was Annar and their daughter was Earth, and her third husband was shining Delling who was related to the sons of Bor. Their son was Day and, like all his father's side of the family, Day was radiant and fair of face.
The Odin took Night and her son Day, sat them in horse-drawn chariots, and set them into the sky to ride around the world every two and a half days.´Night leads the way and her horse is frosty-maned Hrimfaxi. Day's horse is Skinfaxi; he has a gleaming mane that lights up the sky and earth alike.
A man called Mundilfari living in Midgard had two children and they were so beautiful that he called his son Mani and his daughter Sunna; Sunna married a man called Glen. Odin and his brothers and their offspring the Aesir, were angered at such daring. They snatched away both children and placed them in the sky to guide the chariots of the sun and the moon – the constellations made by the sons of Bor to light the world of the sparks of Muspell.
Mani leads the way. He guides the moon on its path and decides when he will wax and wane. He does nottravel alone, as you can see if you look into the sky; for Mani plucked two children from Midgard, Bil and Hjuki, whose father is Vidfinn. They were just walking away from the well Byrgir, carrying between them the water cask Soeg on the pole Simul, when Mani swooped down and carried them off.
Sunna follows behind. One of her horses is called Arvak because he rises so early, and the other Alsvid because he is immensely strong. The Aesir inserted iron-cold bellows under their sholder-blades to keep them cool. Sunna always seems to be in a great hurry, and that is because she is chased by Skoll, the wolf who is always snapping and growling close behind her. In the end he will catch her. And the wolf that races in front of Sunna is called Hati: he is after Mani and will run him down in the end. Both wolves are the sons of an aged giantess who lived in Iron Wood, east of Midgard.
After the sons of Bor had made the first man and woman, and set Night and Day, Moon and Sun in the sky, they remembered the maggots that has squirmed and swarmed in Ymir's flesh and crawled out over the earth. Then they gave them wits and the shape of men, but they live under the hills and mountains in rocky chambers and grottos and caverns. These man-like maggots are called dwarfs, Modsognir is their leader and his deputy is Durin.
So the earth was fashioned and filled with men and giants and dwarfs, surrounded by the sea and covered by the sky. The the sons of Bor built their own realm of Asgard – a mighty stronghold, a place of green plains and shining palaces high over Midgard. The two regions were linked by Bifrost, a flaming rainbow bridge; it was made of three colours with magic and great skill, and it is wonderfully strong. All the Aesir, the guardians of men, crossed over and settled in Asgard. Odin, Allfather, is the oldest and greatest of them all; there are twelve divine gods and twelve divine goddesses, and a great assembly of other Aesir. And this is the beginning of all that has happened, remembered or forgotten, in the regions of the world.
And all that has happened, and all the regions of the world, lie under the branches of the ash Yggdrasill, greatest and best of trees. It soars over all that is, its three roots delve into Asgard and Jotunheim and Niflheim, and there is a spring under each. A hawk and eagle sit in it, a squirrel scurries up and down it, deer leap within it and nibble at it, a dragon devours it, and it is sprinkled with dew. It gives life to itself, it gives life to the unborn. The winds whirl round it and Yggdrasill croons or groans. Yggdrasill always was and is and will be.
In the north is a realm called Niflheim. It is packed with ice and covered with vast sweeps of snow. In the heart of that region lies the spring Hvergelmir and that is the source of eleven rivers named the Elivagar; they are cool Svol and Gunnthra the defiant, Fjorm and bubbling Fimbulthul, fearsome Slid and storming Hrid, Sylg, Ylg, broad Vid and Leipt which streaks like lightning, and freezing Gjoll.
Between these realms there once stretched a huge and seeming emptiness; this was Ginnungagap. The rivers that sprang from Hvergelmir streamed into the void. The yeasty venom in them thickened and congealed like slag, and the rivers turned into ice. That venom also spat out drizzle- an unending dismal hagger that, as soon as it settled turned into rime. So it went on until all the northern part of Ginnungagap was heavy with layers of ice and hoar frost, a desolate place haunted by gusts and skuthers of wind.
Just as the northern part was frozen, the southern was molten and glowing, but the middle of Ginnungagap was as mild as hanging air on a summer evening. There, the warm breath drifting north from Muspell met the rime from Niflheim, it touched it and played over it, and the ice began to thaw and drip. Life quickened in those drops, and they took the form of a giant. He was called Ymir.
Ymir was a frost giant; he was evil from the first. While he slept, he began to sweat. A man and a woman grew out of the ooze under his left armpit, and one of his legs fathered a son on the other leg. Ymir was the forefather of all frost giants, and they called him Aurgelmir.
As more of the ice in Ginnungagap melted, the fluid took the form of a cow. She was called Audumla. Ymir fed off the four rivers of milk that coursed from her teats, and Audumla fed off the ice itself. She licked the salty blocks and by the evening of the first day a man's hair had come out of the ice. Audumla licked more and by the evening of the second day a man's head had come. Audumla licked again and by the evening of the third day the whole man had come. His name was Buri.
Buri was tall and strong and good-looking. In time he had a son called Bor and Bor married a daughter of Bolthor, one of the frost giants. Her name was Bestla and she mothered three children, all of them sons. The first was Odin, the second was Vili, and the third was Ve.
All this was in the beginning, before there were waves of sand, the sea's cool waves, waving grass. There was no earth and no heaven above; only Muspell and Niflheim and, between them, Ginnungagap.
The three sons had no liking for Ymir and the growing gang of unruly. brutal frost giants, as time went on, they grew to hate them. At last they attacked Ymir and killed him. His wounds were like springs; so much blood streamed from them, and so fast, that the flood drowned all the frost giants except Bergelmir and his wife. The embarked in their boat – it was made out of a hollowed tree trunk – and rode on a tide of gore.
Odin and Vil and Ve hoised the body of the dead frost giant onto their shoulders and carted it to the middle of Ginnungagap. That is where they made the world of his body. They shaped the earth from Ymir's flesh and the mountains from his unbroken bones; from his teeth and jaws and the fragments of his shattered bones they made the rocks and boulders and stones.
Odin and Vili and Ve used the welter of blood to make landlocked lakes and to make the sea. After they had formed the earth, they laid the rocking ocean in a ring right around it. And it is so wide that most men would dismiss the very idea of crossing it.
The three brothers raised Ymir's skull and made the sky from it and placed it so that its four corners reached to the ends of the earth. They set a dwarf under each corner, and their names are East and West and North and South. The Odin and Vili and Ve seized on the sparks and glowing embers from Muspell and called them the sun and moon and stars; they put them high in Ginnungagap to light the heaven above and earth below. In this way the brothers gave each star its proper place; some were fixed in the sky, others were free to follow the paths appointed for them.
The earth was round and lay within the ring of the deep sea. Along the strand the sons of Bor marked out tracts of land and gave them to the frost giants and the rock giants; and there, in Jotunheim, the giants settled and remained. They were so hostile that the three brothers built an enclosure further inland around a vast area of the earth. They shaped it out of Ymir's eyebrows, and called it Midgard. The sun warmed the stones in the earth there, and the ground was green with sprouting leeks. The sons of Bor used Ymir's brains as well, flung them up into the air and turned them into every kind of cloud.
One day, Odin and Vili and Ve were striding along the frayed edge of the land, where the earth meets the sea. They came across two fallen trees with their roots ripped out of the ground; one was an ash, the other an elm. Then the sons of Bor raised them and made from them the first man and woman. Odin breathed into them the spirit of life; Vili offered the sharp wits and feeling hearts; Ve gave them the gifts of hearing and sight. The man was called Ask and the woman Embla and they were given Midgard to live in. All the families and nations and races of men descended from them.
One of the giants living in Jotunheim, Narvi, had a daughter called Night who was dark eyed, dark haired and swarthy as the rest of her family. She married three times. Her first husband was a man called Naglfari and their son was Aud: her second husband was Annar and their daughter was Earth, and her third husband was shining Delling who was related to the sons of Bor. Their son was Day and, like all his father's side of the family, Day was radiant and fair of face.
The Odin took Night and her son Day, sat them in horse-drawn chariots, and set them into the sky to ride around the world every two and a half days.´Night leads the way and her horse is frosty-maned Hrimfaxi. Day's horse is Skinfaxi; he has a gleaming mane that lights up the sky and earth alike.
A man called Mundilfari living in Midgard had two children and they were so beautiful that he called his son Mani and his daughter Sunna; Sunna married a man called Glen. Odin and his brothers and their offspring the Aesir, were angered at such daring. They snatched away both children and placed them in the sky to guide the chariots of the sun and the moon – the constellations made by the sons of Bor to light the world of the sparks of Muspell.
Mani leads the way. He guides the moon on its path and decides when he will wax and wane. He does nottravel alone, as you can see if you look into the sky; for Mani plucked two children from Midgard, Bil and Hjuki, whose father is Vidfinn. They were just walking away from the well Byrgir, carrying between them the water cask Soeg on the pole Simul, when Mani swooped down and carried them off.
Sunna follows behind. One of her horses is called Arvak because he rises so early, and the other Alsvid because he is immensely strong. The Aesir inserted iron-cold bellows under their sholder-blades to keep them cool. Sunna always seems to be in a great hurry, and that is because she is chased by Skoll, the wolf who is always snapping and growling close behind her. In the end he will catch her. And the wolf that races in front of Sunna is called Hati: he is after Mani and will run him down in the end. Both wolves are the sons of an aged giantess who lived in Iron Wood, east of Midgard.
After the sons of Bor had made the first man and woman, and set Night and Day, Moon and Sun in the sky, they remembered the maggots that has squirmed and swarmed in Ymir's flesh and crawled out over the earth. Then they gave them wits and the shape of men, but they live under the hills and mountains in rocky chambers and grottos and caverns. These man-like maggots are called dwarfs, Modsognir is their leader and his deputy is Durin.
So the earth was fashioned and filled with men and giants and dwarfs, surrounded by the sea and covered by the sky. The the sons of Bor built their own realm of Asgard – a mighty stronghold, a place of green plains and shining palaces high over Midgard. The two regions were linked by Bifrost, a flaming rainbow bridge; it was made of three colours with magic and great skill, and it is wonderfully strong. All the Aesir, the guardians of men, crossed over and settled in Asgard. Odin, Allfather, is the oldest and greatest of them all; there are twelve divine gods and twelve divine goddesses, and a great assembly of other Aesir. And this is the beginning of all that has happened, remembered or forgotten, in the regions of the world.
And all that has happened, and all the regions of the world, lie under the branches of the ash Yggdrasill, greatest and best of trees. It soars over all that is, its three roots delve into Asgard and Jotunheim and Niflheim, and there is a spring under each. A hawk and eagle sit in it, a squirrel scurries up and down it, deer leap within it and nibble at it, a dragon devours it, and it is sprinkled with dew. It gives life to itself, it gives life to the unborn. The winds whirl round it and Yggdrasill croons or groans. Yggdrasill always was and is and will be.
The Story of Ragnarok
An axe-age, a sword-age, shields will be gashed: there will be a wind-age and a wolf age before the world is destroyed.
First of all Midgard will be wrenched and racked by wars for three winters. Fathers will slaughter sons, brothers will be drenched in another's blood. Mothers will desert their menfolk and seduce their own sons; brothers will bed with sisters.
Then Fimbulvetr, the winter of all winters, will grip and throttle Midgard. Driving snow clouds will converge from north and south and east and west. There will be bitter frosts, biting winds; the shining sun will be helpless. Three such winters will follow each other with no summers between them.
So the end will begin. Then the children of the old giantess in Iron Wood will have their say: the wolf Skoll will seize the sun between his jaws and swallow her - he will spatter Asgard with gore; and his brother Hati will catch the moon and mangle him. The stars will vanish from the sky.
The earth will stard to shudder then. Great trees will away and topple, mountains will shake and rock and come crashing down, and every bond and ftter will burst. Fenrir will run free.
Eggther, watchman of the giants, will sit on his grave mound and strum his harp, smiling grimly. Nothing escapes the red cock Fjalar; he will crow to the giants from bird-wood. At the same time the cock who wakes the warriors every day in Valhalla, golden combed Gullinkambi will crow to the gods. A third cock, rust red, will raise the dead in Hel.
The sea will rear up and waves will pummel the shore because Jormungand, the Midgard serpent, is twisting and writhing in fury, working his way on to dry land. And in those high seas Naglfar will break loose - the ship made from dean men's nails. The bows and the waist and the stern and the hold will be packed with giants and Hrym will stand at the helm, heading towards the plain Vigrid. Loki too, free from his fetters, will take to the water; he will set sail towards Vigrid from the north and his deadweight will be all that ghastly crew in Hel.
Then the brothers Fenrir and Jormungand will move forward side by side. Fenrir'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: it would gape still wider if there were more room. Flames will dance in Fenrir's eyes and leap from his nostrils. With each breath, meanwhile, Jormungand will spew venom; all the earth and sky will be splashed and stained with his poison.
The world will be in uproar, the air quaking with booms and blares and their echoes. Then the sons of Muspell will advance from the south and tear apart the sky itself as they, too, close in on Vigrid. Surt will lead them, his sword blazing like the sun itself. And as they cross Bifrost, the rainbow bridge will crack and break behind them. So all the giants and all the inmates of Hel, and Fenrir and Jormungand, and Surt and the blazing sons of Muspell will gather on Vigrid; they will all but fill that plain that stretches one hundred and twenty leagues in every direction.
The gods, meanwhile, will not be idle. Heimdahl will leave his hall, Himinbjorg, and raise the great horn Gjall to his mouth. He will sound such a blast that it will be heard throughout the nine worlds. All the gods will wake and at once meet in council. The Odin will mount Sleipnir and gallop to Mimir's spring and take advice from Mimir there.
Yggdrasill itself will moan, the ash that always was and waves over all that is. Its leaves will tremble, its limbs shiver and shake even as two humans take refuge deep within it. Everything in heaven and in the earth and Hel will quiver.
Then all the Aesir and all the Einherjar in Valhalla will arm themselves. They will don their helmets and their coats of mail, and grasp their swords and spears and shields. Eight hundred fighting men will forge through each each of that hall's five hundred and forty doors. That vast host will march towards Vigrid and Odin will ride at their head, wearing a golden helmet and a shining corslet, brandishing Gungnir.
Odin wil make straight for the wolf Fenrir: and Thor, right beside him, will be unable to help because Jormungand will at once attack him. Freyr will fight the fire giant Surt. And when Surt whirls his flaming blade, Freyr will rue the day that he gave his own good sword to his servant Skirnir. It will be a long struggle, though, before Freyr succumbs. The hound Garm from Gnipahellir will leap at the throat of one-handed Tyr and they will kill one another. The age-old enemies Loki and Heimdahl will meet once more and each will be the cause of the other's death.
Thor, son of Earth, and gaping Jormungand have met before too; they are well matched. At Vigrid the god will kill the serpent but he will only be able to stagger back nine steps before he falls dead himself, poisoned by the venom Jormungand spews over him.
Odin and Fenrir were the first to engage and their fight will be fearsome. In the end, though, the wolf will seize Allfather between his jaws and swallow him. That will be the death of Odin.
At once his son Vidar will stride forward and press one foot on Fenrir's bottom jaw - and the shoe he will wear then has been a long time in the making; it consists of all the strips and bits of leather pared off all the heels and toes of new shoes since time began, all the leftovers thrown away as gifts for the god. The Vidar will take hold of Fenrir's jaw and tear the wolf apart, so avenging his father.
Then Surt will fling fire in every direction. Asgard and Midgard and Jotunheim and Niflheim will become furnaces - places of raging flame, swirling smoke, ashes, only ashes. The nine worlds will burn and the gods will die. The Einherjar will die, men and women and children in Midgard will die, elves and dwarves will die, giants will die, monsters and creatures of the underworld will die, birds and animals will die. The sun will be dark and there will be no stars in the sky. The earth will sink into the sea.
The earth will rise again out of the water, fair and green. The eagle will fly over cateracts, swoop into the thunder and catch fish under crags. Corn will ripen in fields that were never sown.
Vidar and Vali will still be alive; they will survive the fire and the flood and make their way back to Idavoll, the shining plain where palaces once stood. Modi and Magni, sons of Thor, will join them there, and they will inherit their father's hammer, Mjollnir. And Balder and Hod will come back from the world of the dead; it will not be long before they too, tread the new green grass on Idavoll. Honir will be there as well, and he will hold the wand and foretell what is to come. The sons of Vili and Ve will make up the new number, the gods in heaven, home of the winds.
They will sit down in the sunlight and begin to talk. Turn by turn, they will call up such memories, memories such as are known to them alone. They will talk over many things that happened in the past, and the evil of Jormungand and the wolf Fenrir. And then, amongst the waving grass, they will find gold chessboards, treasures owned once by the Aesir, and gaze at them in wonder.
Many courts will rise once more, some good, some evil. The best place of all will be Gimli in heaven, a building fairer than the sun, roofed with gold. That is where the rulers will live, at peace with themselves and each other. Then there will be Brimir on Okolnir, where the ground is always warm underfoot; there will always be plenty of good drink for those who have a taste for it. And there will be Sindri, a fine hall that stands in the dark mountains of Nidafjoll, made wholly of red gold. Good men will live in these places.
But there will be another hall on Nastrond, the shore of corpses. That place in the underworld will be as vile as it is vast; all its doors will face north. Its walls and roof will be made of wattled snakes, their heads facing inward, blowing so much poison that it runs in rivers through the hall. Oath breakers and murderers and philanderers will wade through those rivers. Nidhogg, too, will outlive the fire and the flood and under Yggdrasill he will suck blood from the bodies of the dead.
The two humans who hid themselves deep within Yggdrasill – some say Hoddmimir's Wood – will be called Lif and Lifthrasir. Surt's fire will not scorch them; it will not even touch them, and their food will be the morning dew. Through the branches, through the leaves, they will see light come back, for before the sun is caught and eaten by the wolf Skoll, she will give birth to a daughter no less fair than herself, who will follow the same sky-path and light the world.
Lif and Lifthrasir will have children. Their children will bear children. There will be life and new life, life everywhere on earth. That was the end; and this is the beginning.
First of all Midgard will be wrenched and racked by wars for three winters. Fathers will slaughter sons, brothers will be drenched in another's blood. Mothers will desert their menfolk and seduce their own sons; brothers will bed with sisters.
Then Fimbulvetr, the winter of all winters, will grip and throttle Midgard. Driving snow clouds will converge from north and south and east and west. There will be bitter frosts, biting winds; the shining sun will be helpless. Three such winters will follow each other with no summers between them.
So the end will begin. Then the children of the old giantess in Iron Wood will have their say: the wolf Skoll will seize the sun between his jaws and swallow her - he will spatter Asgard with gore; and his brother Hati will catch the moon and mangle him. The stars will vanish from the sky.
The earth will stard to shudder then. Great trees will away and topple, mountains will shake and rock and come crashing down, and every bond and ftter will burst. Fenrir will run free.
Eggther, watchman of the giants, will sit on his grave mound and strum his harp, smiling grimly. Nothing escapes the red cock Fjalar; he will crow to the giants from bird-wood. At the same time the cock who wakes the warriors every day in Valhalla, golden combed Gullinkambi will crow to the gods. A third cock, rust red, will raise the dead in Hel.
The sea will rear up and waves will pummel the shore because Jormungand, the Midgard serpent, is twisting and writhing in fury, working his way on to dry land. And in those high seas Naglfar will break loose - the ship made from dean men's nails. The bows and the waist and the stern and the hold will be packed with giants and Hrym will stand at the helm, heading towards the plain Vigrid. Loki too, free from his fetters, will take to the water; he will set sail towards Vigrid from the north and his deadweight will be all that ghastly crew in Hel.
Then the brothers Fenrir and Jormungand will move forward side by side. Fenrir'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: it would gape still wider if there were more room. Flames will dance in Fenrir's eyes and leap from his nostrils. With each breath, meanwhile, Jormungand will spew venom; all the earth and sky will be splashed and stained with his poison.
The world will be in uproar, the air quaking with booms and blares and their echoes. Then the sons of Muspell will advance from the south and tear apart the sky itself as they, too, close in on Vigrid. Surt will lead them, his sword blazing like the sun itself. And as they cross Bifrost, the rainbow bridge will crack and break behind them. So all the giants and all the inmates of Hel, and Fenrir and Jormungand, and Surt and the blazing sons of Muspell will gather on Vigrid; they will all but fill that plain that stretches one hundred and twenty leagues in every direction.
The gods, meanwhile, will not be idle. Heimdahl will leave his hall, Himinbjorg, and raise the great horn Gjall to his mouth. He will sound such a blast that it will be heard throughout the nine worlds. All the gods will wake and at once meet in council. The Odin will mount Sleipnir and gallop to Mimir's spring and take advice from Mimir there.
Yggdrasill itself will moan, the ash that always was and waves over all that is. Its leaves will tremble, its limbs shiver and shake even as two humans take refuge deep within it. Everything in heaven and in the earth and Hel will quiver.
Then all the Aesir and all the Einherjar in Valhalla will arm themselves. They will don their helmets and their coats of mail, and grasp their swords and spears and shields. Eight hundred fighting men will forge through each each of that hall's five hundred and forty doors. That vast host will march towards Vigrid and Odin will ride at their head, wearing a golden helmet and a shining corslet, brandishing Gungnir.
Odin wil make straight for the wolf Fenrir: and Thor, right beside him, will be unable to help because Jormungand will at once attack him. Freyr will fight the fire giant Surt. And when Surt whirls his flaming blade, Freyr will rue the day that he gave his own good sword to his servant Skirnir. It will be a long struggle, though, before Freyr succumbs. The hound Garm from Gnipahellir will leap at the throat of one-handed Tyr and they will kill one another. The age-old enemies Loki and Heimdahl will meet once more and each will be the cause of the other's death.
Thor, son of Earth, and gaping Jormungand have met before too; they are well matched. At Vigrid the god will kill the serpent but he will only be able to stagger back nine steps before he falls dead himself, poisoned by the venom Jormungand spews over him.
Odin and Fenrir were the first to engage and their fight will be fearsome. In the end, though, the wolf will seize Allfather between his jaws and swallow him. That will be the death of Odin.
At once his son Vidar will stride forward and press one foot on Fenrir's bottom jaw - and the shoe he will wear then has been a long time in the making; it consists of all the strips and bits of leather pared off all the heels and toes of new shoes since time began, all the leftovers thrown away as gifts for the god. The Vidar will take hold of Fenrir's jaw and tear the wolf apart, so avenging his father.
Then Surt will fling fire in every direction. Asgard and Midgard and Jotunheim and Niflheim will become furnaces - places of raging flame, swirling smoke, ashes, only ashes. The nine worlds will burn and the gods will die. The Einherjar will die, men and women and children in Midgard will die, elves and dwarves will die, giants will die, monsters and creatures of the underworld will die, birds and animals will die. The sun will be dark and there will be no stars in the sky. The earth will sink into the sea.
The earth will rise again out of the water, fair and green. The eagle will fly over cateracts, swoop into the thunder and catch fish under crags. Corn will ripen in fields that were never sown.
Vidar and Vali will still be alive; they will survive the fire and the flood and make their way back to Idavoll, the shining plain where palaces once stood. Modi and Magni, sons of Thor, will join them there, and they will inherit their father's hammer, Mjollnir. And Balder and Hod will come back from the world of the dead; it will not be long before they too, tread the new green grass on Idavoll. Honir will be there as well, and he will hold the wand and foretell what is to come. The sons of Vili and Ve will make up the new number, the gods in heaven, home of the winds.
They will sit down in the sunlight and begin to talk. Turn by turn, they will call up such memories, memories such as are known to them alone. They will talk over many things that happened in the past, and the evil of Jormungand and the wolf Fenrir. And then, amongst the waving grass, they will find gold chessboards, treasures owned once by the Aesir, and gaze at them in wonder.
Many courts will rise once more, some good, some evil. The best place of all will be Gimli in heaven, a building fairer than the sun, roofed with gold. That is where the rulers will live, at peace with themselves and each other. Then there will be Brimir on Okolnir, where the ground is always warm underfoot; there will always be plenty of good drink for those who have a taste for it. And there will be Sindri, a fine hall that stands in the dark mountains of Nidafjoll, made wholly of red gold. Good men will live in these places.
But there will be another hall on Nastrond, the shore of corpses. That place in the underworld will be as vile as it is vast; all its doors will face north. Its walls and roof will be made of wattled snakes, their heads facing inward, blowing so much poison that it runs in rivers through the hall. Oath breakers and murderers and philanderers will wade through those rivers. Nidhogg, too, will outlive the fire and the flood and under Yggdrasill he will suck blood from the bodies of the dead.
The two humans who hid themselves deep within Yggdrasill – some say Hoddmimir's Wood – will be called Lif and Lifthrasir. Surt's fire will not scorch them; it will not even touch them, and their food will be the morning dew. Through the branches, through the leaves, they will see light come back, for before the sun is caught and eaten by the wolf Skoll, she will give birth to a daughter no less fair than herself, who will follow the same sky-path and light the world.
Lif and Lifthrasir will have children. Their children will bear children. There will be life and new life, life everywhere on earth. That was the end; and this is the beginning.