Ragnarökh part 2 Flashcards
What incident sets the stage for the final catastrophe?
The death of Baldr and the capture of Loki.
What does these lines in the Völuspa (stanza 45) indicate?
Brothers will fight
and kill each other,
sisters’ children
will defy kinship.
It is harsh in the world,
whoredom rife.
An exe age, a sword age
shields are riven
a wind-age, a wolf age
before the world goes headlong
No man will have mercy
upon another
A moral and social decline and disintegration, up to and including fratricide (the killing of one’s brother or sister) and incest.
On top of the moral and social decline is will also be a breakdown of the climate?
And how can these climate changes the related to “the program running backwards”?
Fimbulwinter, a three year-long winder, which mat ve a memory of the catastrophic volcanic eruptions that took place in 536ff..
It is as the program of creation is running backwards. If the world came about in a middle zone that negotiates between extreme heat and extreme cold, its destruction will be the results of these elements -> extreme heat from the volcanic eruption and extreme cold from the Fimbulwinter.
What does this poem indicate?
How fare the gods? | how fare the elves?
All Jotunheim groans| the gods are at council;
Loud roar the dwarfs | by the doors of stone
That in the light of the moral, social and climate destruction everybody is on edge.
Where does the final showdown of Ragnarokm take place?
The field of Vigrior.
On the field of Vigrior there is a very short narrative focusing on a set of duels. Which are these? (5)
- One-armed Tyr vs. the great hound Garm (both die)
- Heimdall vs. Loki (both die)
- Thor vs. the Midgard serpent (both die)
- Odin is killed by the wolf Fenrir -> Fenrir is killed by Odin’s son Vidar.
- Surtr defeats Freyr (who unfortunately had given away his sword when wooing the giantess Gerd) and sets the skies ablaze.
What happens after the set of duels on the field of Vigrior has played out?
The skies set ablaze. The burning world sinks into the ocean. Later, it rises again and some of the younger “uncompromised” gods return. There are Vidar, Vali, Thor;s sons Modi and Magni, the good/innocent Baldr and Hodr.
After the destruction of the world and its return who returns, beside the “uncompromised gods” according to Snorri?
A human couple, Liz and Lithrasir, who survived by hiding in the world three. They will repopulate the earth.
“Then shall the dog Garmr be loosed, he shall do battle with Tyr, and each become the other’s slayer.”
Some experts hypothesise that Garmr actually is…?
The great wolf Fenrir!
It makes sense cause the boundaries between Tyr (by name, the original alpha god) and Odin (who may have risen to the top spot later on) are not always clear. The Tyr/Garmr and Odin/Fenrir showdowns could be two versions of the same fight.
What happens to the goddesses in Ragnarok?
There is no mention of their fate.
What happens to Njöror and the gods of Vanir after Ragnarok?
Poem:
In Anaheim the wise Powers made him and gave him as hostage to the gods; at the doom of men he will come back home among the wise Vanir.
There is a strange reference in Vafbruonismal which may indicate that Ragnarok does not affect the Vanir
There is no doubt that narratives circulated among the Germanic peoples that told of a violent end of the world long before there was any contact with the christian religion.
But the questions is what happens afterwards.
What are the 3 main different interpretations?
Interpretation 1: Cyclical world
Interpretation 2: A new world, qualitatively different (arrival of Christ)
Interpreation 3: A world where action is replaced by reflection
From the Völuspa, Ragnarok seem to indicate a cyclical world.
Link this cyclical view to agrarian societies and the change of key players vs. narrative?
In agrarian societies a cyclical world view is common; the world is born, it grows and blooms, and then withers and dies and if all conditions are met, the cycle is repeated again and again.
The key players may change (Thor and Odin are replaced by their sons), but the basic narrative does not. Old Norse mythology merely adds the twist that the end of each cycle is pretty violent.
From the Völuspa, Ragnarok seem to indicate a cyclical world:
From below the dragon | dark comes forth,
Nithhogg flying | From Nithafjoll
The bodies of men on | his wings he bears,
The serpent bright | but now must I sink.
Who is Nithhogg and what are two ways these lines can be interpreted?
Nithhogg is one of the great evil dragons living in the netherworld where it gnaws od the world three Yggdrasil. It rises after the rebirth of the new world, then this can mean that the whole game is about to be replayed.
An alternate reading is that the seeress (narrator) is not talking about what will be but about what is happening now, signalling that the end of the world she just outlined is about to begin.
From these lines in the Völuspa, a new but qualitatively different world arises after Ragnarok:
There comes on high, | all power to hold
A mighty lord, | all lands he rules.
What lord is it believed this refers to? + How does Snorri use this to justify recycling pagan material?
Is it not a reference to the “mighty” Odin coming back from the dead but to the arrival of Christ, who indicates a completely new stage of history.
Much as the god appeared to acquiesce to their own retirement when Iceland officially decided to adopt Christianity -> The Völuspa tells the story of the old gods going out in a blaze of death and glory to make place for the new superior religion… which they somehow anticipated. (Snorri’s use of prefiguration to justify recycling pagan material).
In this interpretation the Völuspa acknowledges that all it described will and must come to an end.
