The Norse tale of Ragnarok

The Norse tale of Ragnarok presents an interesting example of apocalyptic literature by providing both an end and a unique beginning. The world which rises from the cosmic rubble seems to be essentially equivalent to that which the apocalypse destroyed, possessing the same creatures, features and Gods of times past. This considered, and by incorporating themes of time and fate, Snorri challenges the concepts of the past, present and future of Norse lore by providing a framework which allows for the potential reiteration of history. By reviewing The Prose Edda’s telling of the events surrounding Ragnarok, the relationship between fate, time and history provide a unique alternative to the standard eschatological timeline.

The Prose Edda begins by introducing several key concepts to the later work, beginning with Snorri’s connection of Genesis to Norse mythology. Included in order to give the old tales legitimacy and scandinavians a connection to Christianity, he cites the northern migration of man away from his origins as the cause of the slow loss of the name of the Abrahamic God. This loss represents the primary reason for the need for alternate explanations of natural phenomena and thus the evolution of Nordic mythology (Snorri, 3). Typical examples include a using a convulsing God to explain earthquakes and day and night the work of sky-bound charioteers. (Snorri, 70, 19). The Gods and Goddesses of the Edda posses different traits from those of other beliefs in that they do not possess immortality nor unchanging forms. They also have the distinction of having cosmic equals in the form of the Frost Giants, the precursors to and enemies of the Gods (Snorri, 15). When combined, these two factors serve an important purpose withi...

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...’s claim of ignorance. Instead of the purely eschatological view of a timeline with a fixed conclusion, time within Nose mythology could instead be represented in the form of a cycle with Ragnarok poised waiting at both the beginning and the end. The event which Odin describes as yet to occur could have already happened numerous times, and knowledge of the imperceptible “events of the world further into the future” would be the imperceptible from knowledge of the events of the world backward into the past. Combined with the inclusion of fate, this theory presents a singular closed system which simply repeats, unchanged into infinity.

Time has thus been simplified by the framework which Snorri creates within his telling of Norse mythology, changing the traditional eschatological view of apocalyptic literature into a cyclical storyThe Prose Edda sustained by fate.