by P.D. Brown, Ristandi, and Lothar Tuppan

Ragnarök

The Norse mythological cycle is brought to a close with the Ragnarök, a cataclysmic and catastrophic narrative where a host of frost giants, fire ogres, troll wives, monsters and legions of the dead invade Asgarð and close battle with the gods and einherjar in what will be the latter’s heroic last stand.

The greatest treatment of these themes is given in the Eddic poem Völuspá.  Its treatment is allusive, assuming the knowledge of its audience, kaleidoscoping events, giving greater pace and allowing time to speak of the causes of the gods’ day of reckoning.

The consequences of two events, actions laid down long ago, which cause the disaster, bringing it to pass, the gods have brought upon themselves: Oðinn, Vili and Ve’s slaying of their matrilineal kinsman Ymir, and the breaking of the gods’ vow to the giant builder of Asgarð’s wall; as Völuspá. 24 puts it: a gengoz either; oaths were violated.  Notwithstanding this giant’s deceit, a broken vow seriously affects the gods’ honour; armr er vara vargr — “wretched is the wolf-ravager of vows” (Sigdrifumal 23).

Dronke[1] suggests that a gengoz eithar has a double meaning, quoting Reykdoela Saga’s su var gorth theira, at a gengusk vigin huskarlanna — “this was the settlement they made, that the killings of the house-carls cancelled each other out.”  So, Völuspá. 24’s a gengoz eithar could mean as well that the gods’ oath-breaking is paid for with the death of Baldr.  Yet, no oaths were broken in bringing about Baldr’s death; rather it was the gods’ fateful failure to secure an oath from the harmless looking mistletoe.  Nevertheless, their trusting to oaths fails them just as the giant builder’s trust failed him; the gods broke their word to him and the gods omitted to exact a vow from mistletoe and thought Baldr safe.  Baldr’s dreams (in Baldrs Draumar stanza 1) and his subsequent death, show up their own mortality.

Perhaps the oaths are taking their revenge for the offence, as did the stones in Volsungasaga, in a way which maintains their integrity.  In Volsungasaga, before setting out to Iormunrekkr’s court, Hamthir and Sorli’s mother, Guthrun, warns her sons to do no harm to stone or other big things.  When they kill their half-brother Erpr along the way, his blood falls onto the stony road thereby offending the stones with blood let by one of the same blood.  Later, finding Hamthir and Sorli invincible in combat with edged weapons, Iormunrekkr orders his men to stone the brothers to death.  So, with Frigg having nearly all things swear not to harm Baldr, no vow is broken, only omitted and the oath abusing gods suffer in consequence.

If oath breaking is bad, killing a kinsman is worse and this crime the gods commit in killing Ymir.  Margaret Clunies-Ross[2] argues that this is how the gods separate themselves from the giants, or set themselves up as being different from the giants.  (The Aesir, she posits, can then justify the ‘negative reciprocity’ of having affairs with giantesses but never marrying them and never allowing an Aesir goddess to marry a giant.)  However, killing a kinsman is not seen as having the effect in Norse culture of divorcing yourself from your kindred; it has that of rendering you as being beyond the law, an outlaw.  Either way, the giants will have their revenge.

In many ways, the events of Ragnarök mirror those of the creation.  Firstly, the fire (Völuspá stanza 54) and melted ice (Snorra Edda’s Gylfaginning) that formed the world also help destroy it.  These are the elemental forces neither god nor mortal can control.  Secondly, in Völuspá stanza 54 the land sinks into the sea – sigr fold i mar – recalling the alternative creation myth found only in Ulfr Uggason’s poem where the earth, rising from the depths is fought over by Heimdall and Loki (though Völuspá. 4 has Borr’s sons lifting and shaping the earth and Völuspá. 59 has the earth rising from the sea a second time).  Thirdly, Heimdall fights Loki, recalling their duel as seals at Singasteinn (Heimdall is thus a ‘frame god’, involved in the creation of the world and announcing the end of the present cycle with Gjallarhorn, he is also the last old god to fall.)  Finally, Fenrir fights Oðinn. With regard to the latter, if Loki’s mother Laufey is accepted as one of the Aesir (this would explain his metronymic title, Laufeyarson, being given precedence over the usual patronymic – see (2)’s footnote on p.64), then both Fenrir and Oðinn are of mixed ancestry, each having one parent who is a giant and one who is of the Aesir, both belonging to groups of three siblings.  Oðinn’s is a triad of creation, Fenrir’s of destruction. (See further[3] p.149.)

The Ragnarök is not the end of the world; neither is it a straightforward cyclic rebirth; the world is changed not recreated; the movement is spiral rather than circular, some gods and mortals live on, others are gone.

Much has been made of the idea that the myth of the Ragnarök has been influenced by Christian ideas rather than being a purely Heathen cultural expression.  There has been much to commend arguments on both sides.  However, as Paul Bauschatz[4] points out, Germanic literature, like the body of oral lore preceding it, is accretive; things get added on as, through the passage of time, the unfolding of events and knowledge allows.  The Anglo-Saxon poem Widsith makes reference to the speaker having been with peoples distanced in time way beyond the span of a single life and, once they were heard of, the Hebrews and Egyptians get added in for good measure. This does not make Widsith a Hebrew poem.  If the Völuspá poet was influenced by, or was making a response to, the grandeur of Christian eschatology, it is not overt, as are Christian references in, for example, the poem Beowulf.

When we confront a complex, and all-too-frequently misunderstood concept like that embodied in the term:  Ragnarök, we return to one of the absolute mainstays of the Gild’s approach: that an understanding of the appropriate traditional languages is essential to an accurate understanding of traditional mythological and cosmological lore.  Much can be revealed if we examine “Ragnarök” etymologically.

Before we look at what “Ragnarök” is, however, let’s make it clear what it isn’t. Again, it does not mean, in any way, shape, or form “The End of the (Physical) World.”  There are perfectly good words in Old Norse for “end” “destruction” “dissolution” and the like, and several words that might be translated as “physical world” or “manifest universe” (Heim or “Home” is used on occasion, for example).  None of these words can be said to be at all etymologically related to “Ragnarök.”  This point cannot be overemphasized — no matter how the word is used in the popular press, by some modern Heathens, or in the pages of your favorite issue of Marvel Comics’ Thor. 

So what does Ragnarök mean?

It’s a compound word, made up of two complex and nuanced, but still very translatable Old Norse words:

1)      Rögna – which is the genitive plural of Regin: “The Advisors” — The gods (but specifically the gods in their role as those who confer knowledge and wisdom, Those who counsel, those who shape things according to paradigmatic patterns).

2)      Rök – this is a very complicated word with a number of possible meanings.  The most clear of these is “ruling” or “judgment,” as in a legal ruling or legal judgment, a decision which either upholds past precedent or creates new precedent (as seen in the ON Rökstola “Judgement Seat”).  Other meanings for “Rök” include “origin” or “beginning,” “memory,” “wonder, sign, or marvel” “deeds” or “history” (see Cleasby-Vigfusson for more).  Right away this should indicate that we’re not talking about something that can easily be interpreted as a kind of Norse End-Times Prophecy (which comes as a sad disappointment to all the ex-evangelicals and crypto-Christians in Modern Heathenry who miss their Fire-and-Brimstone Book of the Revelation).

Ragnarök can thus be accurately translated as “Ruling of the Divine Advisors,” “Judgment of the Divine Advisors” “Wondrous history of the Divine Advisors” “Deeds of the Divine Advisors” or even “Origin of the Divine Advisors” — which puts us in some fascinating and complex theological and cosmological territory.  If we strive to properly understand what is embodied in these related ideas, we can gain a more profound understanding about how the gods reveal themselves to human consciousness.

It is important to ask why the word Regin is used in this compound, rather than other plural terms that in Old Norse describe the community of the gods.  One such term, probably familiar to most readers of this article is Tivar: “The gods” (related to Latin Divus and Sanskrit Devas).  We find the phrase “Tiva rök” (Deeds of the gods) in numerous places in the Poetic Edda but to call the gods Tivar is to stress their eternal sovereignty, not their role as advisors and shapers.  And this latter role is what is meant by Regin.  This distinction is crucial.

A Ragnarök is a ruling or judgement of the transcendent entities who establish the patterns that underlie things as we know them.  It might be the “Origin” of gods, or their “Twilight,” or simply a “Showing Forth” of the presence of the Regin.  It isn’t the beginning or ending of physical things, as much as it is the demonstration, beginning, or changing of the patterns that shape our thoughts about these things, our ways of looking at the world, our ways of understanding the meaning of the world and the things in it.  The term “Paradigm Shift” (although somewhat overused) would be a better way of describing what “Ragnarök” is.

In the present day, our news media abound with stories of social and economic collapse, of natural disaster, of war and famine — Are we on the verge of something that might be called “Ragnarök”?

The answer to that question lies in what is really changing here:  If we observe the destruction of a physical or social universe, an increase in physical entropy without a correspondingly new awareness of our models for understanding the universe, then we don’t have a Ragnarök.

Conversely, a Ragnarök can happen without physical dissolution of the world if the fundamental paradigms by which we understand the world change[5]. (let’s face it, even in the Völuspá, Yggdrasil trembles, but never falls).

Ultimately, a close look at this concept, with attention paid to the etymology of the word, reveals just how much more sophisticated and fertile an idea it is than the simplistic Christian (and later modernist) vision of the end of the world.

With this in mind, it is interesting to compare the real meaning of Ragnarök with that of the analogous term “Apocalypse,” which has been similarly misunderstood and misapplied by many.  In the original Greek, ἀποκάλυψις  (apokalupsis) means “a removing of the cover,” “a revelation,” or “a disclosure.”  If we compare these terms, and what has become of them, an important concept comes to light.

For Indo-European cultures in general, and Germanic cultures specifically, crisis reveals.  Crisis, we might say, makes us more conscious.

On the other hand, those whose traditions teach them to fear personal or collective destruction, and strive to stave off crisis at all cost, will never know real change, because the will never see what lies beneath the appearance of things.  Fearing the “world’s end,” they will never see the world as it truly is.

Our Traditions, on the other hand, in their very language, challenge us to look upon our personal and collective worlds, whether they are in turmoil or at peace, and see beneath the surface — to see and hear the fundamental patterns that underlie things as they seem.

Once we’ve seen those patterns and paradigms, we can work alongside the Regin to strengthen the patterns that serve them, or to change and dissolve those that do not.

The many agents of ‘destruction’ within Ragnarök also provide a challenge to understanding what it is.  When one sees crisis as an evil that needs to be avoided, it is subsequently easy to see the agents of those crises as being wholly evil as well.  In the modern, Christianized world-view it is assumed that monsters are synonymous with demons (specifically in their form as evil beings whose every action and very existence corrupts and destroys all that is good).  This is because, in the same way that many don’t understand what a Ragnarök or an Apocalypse is, most of us have also misunderstood what monsters are (and there are many monsters in the lore of Ragnarök).

The modern English word monster ultimately stems from the Latin monstrum meaning a divine portent of misfortune, coming from monēre ‘to warn’.  David D. Gilmore, in his book Monsters:  Evil Beings, Mythical Beasts, and All Manner of Imaginary Terrors, makes the point that the word refers “etymologically to that which reveals, that which warns”[6].  This semiotic nature of monster phenomena where monsters “…point out something by signaling or symbolizing”[7] is something that is inherent in Ragnarök and specifically the reckoning previously mentioned.

Monsters are portents of something and can indicate omens regarding the breaking of laws or other aspects of Divine order.  Their terrifying characteristic indicates that something profoundly disastrous is occurring, causing the order of things (either on a cosmic, political, familial, or personal scale) to be fundamentally threatened.  Their meaning is more than just what frightens us.  They reveal “the paradoxical closeness of the monstrous and the divine.  For monsters contain that numinous quality of awe mixed with horror and terror that unites the evil and sublime in a single symbol:  that which is beyond the human, the super human, the unnameable, the tabooed, the terrible and the unknown.”[8]  Monsters are symbols that allow us to explore cognitive dissonance.

Monsters are a warning of something fundamentally world-changing (on whatever scale) and provide us with something we can interact with (whether that be a sign, symbol, or trans-personal entity) in order to fix the problem.  This can happen by either stopping the threat or by engaging with the changes so that we can integrate them into the new status-quo once the crisis has run its course.  As Marina Warner explains, monsters “represent abominations against society, civilization, and family, yet are vehicles for expressing ideas of proper behavior and due order.”[9]

Ragnarök is filled with narrative examples of interactions between the gods and their Heroes on one side, and an army of Monsters on the other.  These conflicts provide us with clues as to how to address the crises that appear in our lives.  The Monsters, when seen for what they are, are allies in that they are mysteries that can reveal to us what has been hidden, if we have the ability to understand them.  Veistu hvé ráða skal?

Studying the exemplary model of Ragnarök:  of how Oðinn prepares for Ragnarök, how the gods battle to their own deaths, how the next generation of gods survives, how Life and Love of Life are preserved, and how the einherjar — the immortal dead who die again in this final battle — prepare and fight in this conflict provides greater understanding not only on how to face these monsters and the crises they portend, but ultimately how to truly live.  Even pondering Loki’s role in Ragnarök, in light of our discussion of monsters, is enlightening.

What were Loki’s motivations for all that occurred, from his flyting, through Baldr’s death, to the end of Ragnarök?  What prompted him to become the ‘closer’ of this age[10]?  Was he truly a cause of these tragic events or was he just acting as a ‘monster’ — a portent of something more fundamentally wrong with the age?  Is he, essentially, just a messenger communicating the existence of greater wrongs, of a debt that had now come due?  How, in the other myths featuring this most confusing of tricksters, is he both divine and monstrous, and what does that mean?

Like all stories and myths, there are as many answers as there are honest seekers and everyone has to decide for themselves how to approach life, death, and how to continue life after everything seemingly falls apart.

This is the Rune of Ragnarök — do you have the strength and courage to rown it?

What new Worlds would you build from the bones of Dead Giants?

---

[1] The Poetic Edda Vol.II, (p.47), Ursula Dronke, Clarendon Press, Oxford 1997.

[2] Prolonged Echoes Vol.I, Margaret Clunies-Ross, Odense University Press 1994.

[3] Reflections on Old Norse Myths, edited, inter alios, by Pernille Herman, Brepols 2007.

[4] The Well and the Tree, Paul Bauschatz, Amhurst 1982.

[5] (Those reading this who are members of the Rune-Gild, and who know our history, can probably identify one particular instance in which a showing forth of the Ginn-Regin  involved no more than the whisper of a single Word in a single ear.   No physical destruction occurred, but that whisper would change lives and worlds in years to come.  Even now it is building to a roar…)

[6] Gilmore, David G., Monsters:  Evil Beings, Mythical Beasts, and All Manner of Imaginary Terrors, p. 9.

[7] Ibid, p.9.  Gilmore further goes on to say, “Clearly, from the beginnings of recorded time, monsters have been part of a semiotic culture of divination, metaphors, messages, indications of deeper meaning or inspiration.”

[8] Ibid, p. 10.

[9] Warner, Marina, No Go the Bogeyman, p. 11.

[10] Loki’s name, despite uncertain etymology, has been best argued as being the ‘closer’ as, in the case of Ragnarök, someone who closed the door on the old age so a new one could begin.