![]() ![]() back around shortly, you know, I really feel like we were connecting there. Then you have seen Ragnarok, the fall of Asgard, the great prophecy. Because I've been having these terrible dreams of late! Asgard up in flames. You know, it's funny you should mention that. Not until I fulfill my destiny, and lay waste to your home. a bitch! You're still alive! I thought my father killed you like, half a million years ago. The massive wolf kills Odin and then is killed by Vidar, Odin's son.Surtur! Son of. At Ragnarök, however, Fenrir breaks free from his chains and attacks Odin on the plains of Vigrid. When Fenrir realizes he's been betrayed, he snaps his jaws shut and Tyr is left with one limb noticeably shorter than the other.īefore you feel too bad for the wolf-child, Norse audiences would have surely interpreted this beast as plenty fearsome and already associated with some pretty evil spirits and goings-on, so their sympathy may have been pretty limited. It's made all the more sad by one tale, where Fenrir's former friend, Tyr, volunteers to guarantee the other gods' behavior by putting his hand in the wolf's mouth. ![]() They'd gotten wind of a prophecy that Loki's children would cause massive trouble for the gods (like, oh, the end of their world). ![]() According to the World History Encyclopedia, Fenrir seemed to be more or less minding his own business when the Aesir came along. ![]() Said wolf is actually Fenrir, a massive wolf who's also a son of trickster god Loki. Surtr will also eventually engulf the world in fire. And, according to the Prose Edda, fire giant Surtr will kill Frey, in large part because the Aesir will have apparently forgotten his good sword. Divine watchman Heimdall and Loki face off, managing to kill one another (via Britannica). But, with all of the subsequent bloodshed and the many, many bodies left on the field, that sort of small joy must be very brief indeed. It's already been mentioned once before in the Poetic Edda, where Odin, in the midst of a battle of wits with a jotunn, mentions that the final battle will take place on this massive plain (via " Influences of Pre-Christian Mythology and Christianity on Old Norse Poetry").Īt this point, there have been three years of terrible winter, so perhaps it feels good to the gods to stretch their legs a bit. The site of their ultimate showdown with, well, everyone else? A field known as Vigrid (also known as Vígríðr) where broad battle lines between Surtr's forces and the gods will be drawn. For, if the World Tree dies, then so, too, will the gods and just about everything else in their wake. Given that the roots of Yggdrasil appear to hold everything together, it's pretty imperative that the Norns do their job well. Three mythical women, known as the Norns, care for the tree with sacred water. The Public Domain Review notes that its roots were believed to reach down into the underworld, while the branches stretched fantastically high. We can at least be reasonably certain of a few details, like how Asgard was the realm of a class of gods known as the Aesir, Jotunheim was for the fearsome giants, the gods known as Vanir were in Vanaheim, and regular old humans resided in Midgard.Īnd, far from being just some plain tree, Yggdrasil was a pretty big deal. Early Norse storytellers apparently assumed that everyone already knew the nine realms, while later Christian writers in the medieval period either weren't in on the details or didn't care to include them in the written accounts. ![]()
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