Mythology Book

NORTHERN EUROPE 157

the waves, where crops would grow

without having been sown. The

surviving Aesir would begin to

gather on Idavoll, where Asgard used

to stand: the only thing that would

remain would be some golden

gaming pieces lying in the grass.

Odin’s sons Vídar and Váli would

arrive first, followed by Thor’s sons

Modi and Magni, having rescued

Thor’s hammer from the destruction

of the old world. Last, Baldur and Hod

would return from Hel, complete with

the serpent Niddhogg. The heavens,

too, would survive, and virtuous folk

(who had presumably died during

Ragnarök) would feast in the halls of

Gimlé and Brimir.

Two humans, a woman called

Líf (“Life”) and a man called

Leifthrasir (“Thriving Remnant”),

would survive Ragnarök and Surt’s

fire by hiding within the branches

of Yggdrasil. They would sustain

themselves on the morning dew

and they would go on to have so

many descendants that the earth

would be completely repopulated.

The Valkyries, Norse maidens who

decided who lived or died in battle,

head to war in Arthur Rackham’s 1910

illustration The Ride of the Valkyries.

sink beneath the sea, taking the

gods, the battle dead, and all

humankind with it. The inrushing

waters would put out the flames.

The fate of other beings—the

frost giants, elves, and dwarves—

was not mentioned, but it is

probably safe to assume that they

too would perish.

A brighter future

Similar to “Völuspá,” in Snorri’s

account a beautiful new world

would soon shoot up from beneath

Christ and Ragnarök

In the early stages of the

conversion of the Norse to

Christianity, monuments

such as preaching crosses

combined Christian symbols

with scenes from old Norse

myths, such as Ragnarök.

The Norse often accepted

Christ as simply one more deity

among many, but Christianity

required a convert to believe

that there was only one god.

The monuments were created to

aid the conversion process. For

example, Denmark’s Jelling rune

stone, considered the country’s

earliest Christian monument,

depicted Christ on the cross

entwined by foliage. This was

intended to draw a parallel

between Christ and Odin, who

hanged himself from the world

tree Yggdrasil.

Other monuments reminded

converts that the old gods were

mere mortals, doomed to die,

by juxtaposing the cross—the

symbol of Christ’s resurrection—

with scenes of Ragnarök. The

message: Christ alone was

eternal, and only he could offer

his followers eternal life.

The Jelling rune stone, c. 965 ce,

sometimes referred to as “Denmark’s

birth certificate,” combined both

Christian and old Norse iconography.

The new world would be lit by a

new sun, because the old sun

would have given birth to a fiery

daughter moments before being

swallowed by Sköll the wolf.

This regeneration of the

earth and sky contrasts with the

foreboding at the end of “Völuspá.”

Snorri’s optimistic vision of the

future world, however, may possibly

have been as a result of his

Christian beliefs. The “Völuspá” is

likely a truer vision of the way the

Norse traditionally saw the

future—as an endless cycle of

creation and destruction. ■

Then the powerful,

mighty one, he

who rules over

everything, will come

from above.

Poetic Edda

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