The New International Encyclopædia/Ragnarök

RAGNARÖK, räg′nȧ-rẽk′. In Scandinavian mythology, the end of the world, and the fall of the gods before the combined demon hosts of the world. The word ragnarök really means “judgment of the gods,” but it has been conceived sophistically to mean “twilight of the gods,” and as the Götterdämmerung has formed the basis of the Wagnerian music-drama Der Ring des Nibelungen. The fundamental conception of the ragnarök is the end of the Golden Age, brought about by the conflict of the two types of Norse gods, known respectively as Æsir and Vanir, and by the Æsir's violation of their oaths. The chief source of these conceptions is the poem of the Elder Edda, called the Völuspa, a mixture of heathen and Christian conceptions. The battle between the gods and demons is ushered in with the appearance of the divine war maidens, the Walkyries. Balder, the beautiful god, is dead, through Loki's malignant treachery, and his fate seals the doom of the other gods. The giant watchman Eggther strikes his harp, and in each of the three worlds, that of the giants, the Æsir, and Hel, a cock crows calling the warriors to the battle. The hell-hound Garme bays aloud; the wolf Fenrir tears his chain. On the earth men are engaged in bloodshed and incest. Floods rise everywhere. The old world tree, the ash Yggdrasil, sways to its roots. Then the god Heimdaler sounds his horn, calling the gods to the fray. In mighty array the demon hosts come marching against the gods from the east, north, and south. Odin engages in combat with Fenrir; Freyr with Surtr; Thor with the serpent Midgard; all the three gods fall in the struggle. The demons are masters of the battle-field. The sun grows black, the earth sinks into the sea, the stars fall from heaven. Vapor and fire rage, the high flame licks the sky. The world and the gods are gone. But from out of the flood rises a new earth which unsown grows grain, and the Æsir come again. Consult Chantepie de la Saussaye, The Religion of the Teutons (Boston, 1902).