Talkingfox
02-09-2007, 11:50 PM
Ragnarök is one of those Nordic concepts that is IMO more misrepresented than any other. It's been used synonymously with a literal Armageddon which I think is totally erroneous.
For those not familiar with the myth I offer a translation without the prevalent "more archaic/arcane than thou" tone that I can't stand.
Yeah I know it's long...it's distilled from 5 different sagas...please bear with me here.
Ragnarök for Dummies or how I quit worrying and learned to love the Jotun.
A personal, grammatically mangled and grossly parenthetical Translation/Analysis
* With appropriate nods to the late Mr. Kubrick*
Note: Asides other than the smart assed variety are in italic. Actual concepts of the myth that I deem important symbology are in bold type. That's my story and I'm stickin' to it.
The Myth:
Ragnarok is preceded by 3 successive winters with no summer (Fimbulwinter). As a result, all sorts of cultural ickiness ensues and all morality is flipped on its ass.
The sun and the moon are eaten by Jotun Wolves and all the stars burn out.
Earthquakes, tsunami and other natural disasters break every bond…including those that hold the bad guys (i.e. Fenris wolf, the midgard serpent, etc.)
Eggther (the Jotunside of Heimdal) finds this all very amusing, parks it on his own grave mound and plays his harp, grinning like a chipmunk.
The earth and sky are nastified by poison spewed by the freed Jormundgandr (Midgard serpent)
The Asa, the Jotun and the dead are called to action by 3 cocks. (Of the CHICKEN variety, you twisted f***)
Armies come sailing to Asgard; from the North, Loki, Hel and the dead (who are used as ballast) from the East, the Jotun in a very nifty ship made from the nails of dead men.
From the South (Muspel), Surtr (The Grand High Poopoo of fire giants) comes and fries everything with the “Sword of Revenge”…and I mean everything. The Sky splits and falls.
As this company approaches, Bifrost (the Rainbow bridge linking Asgard with the otherworlds) cracks up.
All 9 worlds of Yggdrasil shake as a result of the sheer noise.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Heimdal just happens to notice all of this brouhaha (took him long enough! So much for hearing grass grow) and blows Gjallerhorn which can be heard through all 9 worlds.
This wakes the gods (apparently napping through all of this) who go for a confab. Odin splits on Sleipnir to Mimrs well and has a powwow with Mimr as to course of action.
All the Aseir and Einherjar (transl. One- Army i.e. lots of dead guys from Valhalla) gear up and hit the field of battle led by Odin, replete with Spear and Magic Helmet.
Frejr fights Surtr for a long time but is the first of the gods to croak as he has given his sword to his servant, quite some time ago, over a girl. Odin and Fenrir go at it. Odin gets eaten. Thor smacks Jörmungandr in the head with his hammer. The snake buys it but yacks poison all over Thor who also buys it. Tyr and the Garmarn (Hellhound) fall to fighting; likewise Heimdal and Loki. He dies, they die, everybody dies.
Vidar, Odin’s son, understandably pissed off over the munching of dad, stomps on Fenrir’s lower jaw with a shoe he’s has been making since time began. He grabs the wolf’s upper jaw and gives him a splitting (and lethal) headache. Finally, Surtr torches what’s left of the 9 worlds with the Sword of Revenge. He himself goes up like a roman candle, leaving only a pile of ash and illogic. Everything dies and smells real bad. What’s left of the sky torches like dry kindling and the earth slides into the sea.
One field of Asgard survives the torching and barley grows where nobody planted it.
A new baby sun girl makes her appearance and takes up where her mom left off, who had apparently given birth to her just before becoming wolf chow. No wonder she couldn’t run.
Odin's sons Vidar and Váli, Thor's sons Móði and Magni, who inherit their father's magic hammer Mjollnir, survive. Hœnir lives, holds a staff and tells people obscure and mostly unintelligible kennings of the future. Baldr and his brother Höðr, who’ve been on Ice in Hel, take over tenancy of Valhalla (which in previous stanzas had burned to the ground that had slid into the sea). All these guys (and No women!!??) sit in the barley field and jaw about what happened. They find the last remaining doodad from Asgard which happens to be a golden game board. They think it’s cool.
This is where things get uber weird as opposed to Wyrd. Most of the following is From the Prose Edda only. See personal analysis below.
Two humans escape the destruction of the world by chickening out and hotfooting it to Hoddmímir's Forest (aligned to Mimr’s Well which is under the roots of the now charcoal world tree at the base of the burned out 9 worlds). Their names are Lif and Lifthrasir (Trans. Life masc. and fem. Ok this is Bob…and his wife, Bob), they live on dew, get very busy and repopulate the world which has, in previous stanzas, slid into the sea.
They then bow and scrape to their new/old and previously on ice gods, headed up by Baldr.
Two back up and fireproof heavens survive Surtr’s temper tantrum: south by south up of Asgard, Andlang; further above that another, Vidblain, just in case the other heavens are in the wash.
The very best hall in the new heaven is Gimle, provided one can get in without being blinded by the roof which is entirely gold and brighter than the sun. Other halls include, Brimir, a hall on Okolnir (Trans: Never Cold) that has a really great bar with no cover charge and Sindri, an excellent but weighty hall made entirely of red gold, on Nidafjoll (trans. Dark Mountains). The souls of the virtuous (and by default boring) pal around with the gods in an eternal pub crawl that never breaks out into a brawl or spew fest.
The last hall is in the underworld and called Náströnd (Trans: corpse strand). It’s ginormous and never sees the sun; all its doors face north, letting in one Hel of a draft; its walls and roof are made of wattled snakes, heads facing in, secreting torrents of poison. The chilly assholery of the world ( Including, but not limited to: oath breakers, murderers and philanderers, oh my) spend eternity slogging about knee deep in the poison.
Hvergelmir (a spring at the ginnugagap, poisonous source of all cold rivers) and Níðhöggr (the beastie that chews on the roots of the World tree which has ostensibly already burned down), do nasty things to the dead (Including, but not limited to, slurping up all their blood ; just how a spring can do that is about as logical as it’s existence at this point).
In this shiny, happy world, nobody is miserable ever, except for the pasty slobs living in Náströnd. Gods and men will live together in peace and harmony and inspire sappy soundtrack music for shitty films like “The 13th Warrior”. Lif and Lifthrasir’s kids and their subsequent inbred spawn inhabit Midgard and hopefully find something to eat besides dew.
Personal analysis aka Views from a Broad:
There are of course, depending on the poet, variations of who lives and who dies. The only constants are as follows: Baldur ( perfection held in stasis in the subconscious{hel}) , his wife Nana(Self sacrifice in duty) , his blind brother Hoder (reunification of opposing yet directly linked selves), Hoenir (the neutral observer and silent council) , Lif and Lifthrasir (applied life force). In most of the poems (with the exception of Sturlsson) there is no separation of the new Asgard/Midgard mentioned implying a union of spheres of existence and only Sturlsson mentions the ‘worshiping’ of the new gods.
The alignment of Hoddmímir's Forest with Mimr’s well places it outside the 9 worlds, therefore outside of time/space. The concept of the well as source of undivided past/present/future memory resonates here; it makes sense that it should survive the destruction of artificial applications of said memory, including Mimr himself. The Norns as keepers of Fate sit at the lip of the well, situated at the base of the World tree and logically speaking would get torched.
In my kenning Sturlsson is unsuccessfully trying to fuse 2 very different worldviews. Snorri seemed to be a bit of a literalist as well as a mediocre poet; either that or he was trying to justify the myth to his monkish editors so that it would survive.
[Dude, You just wrote that heaven burns down. Whatta ya mean heaven burns down????? Hell Too???? We can’t have no heaven and no hell!!! It’s just not proper! All of this, of course, being discussed with much waving about of a red pencil and lit match]
The only afterlife structure mentioned in all of the poems and sagas that I’ve read is the hall Gimle, built on the one surviving meadow of Asgard. It seems to have little significance beyond a pretty and expensive mead hall that everybody hangs out in, thus restating the concept of peaceful unity. If all is living in peace and harmony why does one need spewed rivers of poison, intended for nastiness that isn’t supposed to exist anymore, anyways???? I find it interesting that Snorri spent more stanzas describing the pains of the new hell than the glory of the new heavens that he invented.
IMO Sturlsson is trying to take a myth that is emblematic of the individual internal process and make it a literal one. Ragnarök is about the destruction of out grown modeling and dissolution of boundaries, not about the imposition of a new set, no matter how “pretty”. IMO it also addresses the growth/entropy/death/growth cycle that’s also addressed in the Indian Yugas. The Norse were/are nothing if not hip to cause and effect.
For those not familiar with the myth I offer a translation without the prevalent "more archaic/arcane than thou" tone that I can't stand.
Yeah I know it's long...it's distilled from 5 different sagas...please bear with me here.
Ragnarök for Dummies or how I quit worrying and learned to love the Jotun.
A personal, grammatically mangled and grossly parenthetical Translation/Analysis
* With appropriate nods to the late Mr. Kubrick*
Note: Asides other than the smart assed variety are in italic. Actual concepts of the myth that I deem important symbology are in bold type. That's my story and I'm stickin' to it.
The Myth:
Ragnarok is preceded by 3 successive winters with no summer (Fimbulwinter). As a result, all sorts of cultural ickiness ensues and all morality is flipped on its ass.
The sun and the moon are eaten by Jotun Wolves and all the stars burn out.
Earthquakes, tsunami and other natural disasters break every bond…including those that hold the bad guys (i.e. Fenris wolf, the midgard serpent, etc.)
Eggther (the Jotunside of Heimdal) finds this all very amusing, parks it on his own grave mound and plays his harp, grinning like a chipmunk.
The earth and sky are nastified by poison spewed by the freed Jormundgandr (Midgard serpent)
The Asa, the Jotun and the dead are called to action by 3 cocks. (Of the CHICKEN variety, you twisted f***)
Armies come sailing to Asgard; from the North, Loki, Hel and the dead (who are used as ballast) from the East, the Jotun in a very nifty ship made from the nails of dead men.
From the South (Muspel), Surtr (The Grand High Poopoo of fire giants) comes and fries everything with the “Sword of Revenge”…and I mean everything. The Sky splits and falls.
As this company approaches, Bifrost (the Rainbow bridge linking Asgard with the otherworlds) cracks up.
All 9 worlds of Yggdrasil shake as a result of the sheer noise.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Heimdal just happens to notice all of this brouhaha (took him long enough! So much for hearing grass grow) and blows Gjallerhorn which can be heard through all 9 worlds.
This wakes the gods (apparently napping through all of this) who go for a confab. Odin splits on Sleipnir to Mimrs well and has a powwow with Mimr as to course of action.
All the Aseir and Einherjar (transl. One- Army i.e. lots of dead guys from Valhalla) gear up and hit the field of battle led by Odin, replete with Spear and Magic Helmet.
Frejr fights Surtr for a long time but is the first of the gods to croak as he has given his sword to his servant, quite some time ago, over a girl. Odin and Fenrir go at it. Odin gets eaten. Thor smacks Jörmungandr in the head with his hammer. The snake buys it but yacks poison all over Thor who also buys it. Tyr and the Garmarn (Hellhound) fall to fighting; likewise Heimdal and Loki. He dies, they die, everybody dies.
Vidar, Odin’s son, understandably pissed off over the munching of dad, stomps on Fenrir’s lower jaw with a shoe he’s has been making since time began. He grabs the wolf’s upper jaw and gives him a splitting (and lethal) headache. Finally, Surtr torches what’s left of the 9 worlds with the Sword of Revenge. He himself goes up like a roman candle, leaving only a pile of ash and illogic. Everything dies and smells real bad. What’s left of the sky torches like dry kindling and the earth slides into the sea.
One field of Asgard survives the torching and barley grows where nobody planted it.
A new baby sun girl makes her appearance and takes up where her mom left off, who had apparently given birth to her just before becoming wolf chow. No wonder she couldn’t run.
Odin's sons Vidar and Váli, Thor's sons Móði and Magni, who inherit their father's magic hammer Mjollnir, survive. Hœnir lives, holds a staff and tells people obscure and mostly unintelligible kennings of the future. Baldr and his brother Höðr, who’ve been on Ice in Hel, take over tenancy of Valhalla (which in previous stanzas had burned to the ground that had slid into the sea). All these guys (and No women!!??) sit in the barley field and jaw about what happened. They find the last remaining doodad from Asgard which happens to be a golden game board. They think it’s cool.
This is where things get uber weird as opposed to Wyrd. Most of the following is From the Prose Edda only. See personal analysis below.
Two humans escape the destruction of the world by chickening out and hotfooting it to Hoddmímir's Forest (aligned to Mimr’s Well which is under the roots of the now charcoal world tree at the base of the burned out 9 worlds). Their names are Lif and Lifthrasir (Trans. Life masc. and fem. Ok this is Bob…and his wife, Bob), they live on dew, get very busy and repopulate the world which has, in previous stanzas, slid into the sea.
They then bow and scrape to their new/old and previously on ice gods, headed up by Baldr.
Two back up and fireproof heavens survive Surtr’s temper tantrum: south by south up of Asgard, Andlang; further above that another, Vidblain, just in case the other heavens are in the wash.
The very best hall in the new heaven is Gimle, provided one can get in without being blinded by the roof which is entirely gold and brighter than the sun. Other halls include, Brimir, a hall on Okolnir (Trans: Never Cold) that has a really great bar with no cover charge and Sindri, an excellent but weighty hall made entirely of red gold, on Nidafjoll (trans. Dark Mountains). The souls of the virtuous (and by default boring) pal around with the gods in an eternal pub crawl that never breaks out into a brawl or spew fest.
The last hall is in the underworld and called Náströnd (Trans: corpse strand). It’s ginormous and never sees the sun; all its doors face north, letting in one Hel of a draft; its walls and roof are made of wattled snakes, heads facing in, secreting torrents of poison. The chilly assholery of the world ( Including, but not limited to: oath breakers, murderers and philanderers, oh my) spend eternity slogging about knee deep in the poison.
Hvergelmir (a spring at the ginnugagap, poisonous source of all cold rivers) and Níðhöggr (the beastie that chews on the roots of the World tree which has ostensibly already burned down), do nasty things to the dead (Including, but not limited to, slurping up all their blood ; just how a spring can do that is about as logical as it’s existence at this point).
In this shiny, happy world, nobody is miserable ever, except for the pasty slobs living in Náströnd. Gods and men will live together in peace and harmony and inspire sappy soundtrack music for shitty films like “The 13th Warrior”. Lif and Lifthrasir’s kids and their subsequent inbred spawn inhabit Midgard and hopefully find something to eat besides dew.
Personal analysis aka Views from a Broad:
There are of course, depending on the poet, variations of who lives and who dies. The only constants are as follows: Baldur ( perfection held in stasis in the subconscious{hel}) , his wife Nana(Self sacrifice in duty) , his blind brother Hoder (reunification of opposing yet directly linked selves), Hoenir (the neutral observer and silent council) , Lif and Lifthrasir (applied life force). In most of the poems (with the exception of Sturlsson) there is no separation of the new Asgard/Midgard mentioned implying a union of spheres of existence and only Sturlsson mentions the ‘worshiping’ of the new gods.
The alignment of Hoddmímir's Forest with Mimr’s well places it outside the 9 worlds, therefore outside of time/space. The concept of the well as source of undivided past/present/future memory resonates here; it makes sense that it should survive the destruction of artificial applications of said memory, including Mimr himself. The Norns as keepers of Fate sit at the lip of the well, situated at the base of the World tree and logically speaking would get torched.
In my kenning Sturlsson is unsuccessfully trying to fuse 2 very different worldviews. Snorri seemed to be a bit of a literalist as well as a mediocre poet; either that or he was trying to justify the myth to his monkish editors so that it would survive.
[Dude, You just wrote that heaven burns down. Whatta ya mean heaven burns down????? Hell Too???? We can’t have no heaven and no hell!!! It’s just not proper! All of this, of course, being discussed with much waving about of a red pencil and lit match]
The only afterlife structure mentioned in all of the poems and sagas that I’ve read is the hall Gimle, built on the one surviving meadow of Asgard. It seems to have little significance beyond a pretty and expensive mead hall that everybody hangs out in, thus restating the concept of peaceful unity. If all is living in peace and harmony why does one need spewed rivers of poison, intended for nastiness that isn’t supposed to exist anymore, anyways???? I find it interesting that Snorri spent more stanzas describing the pains of the new hell than the glory of the new heavens that he invented.
IMO Sturlsson is trying to take a myth that is emblematic of the individual internal process and make it a literal one. Ragnarök is about the destruction of out grown modeling and dissolution of boundaries, not about the imposition of a new set, no matter how “pretty”. IMO it also addresses the growth/entropy/death/growth cycle that’s also addressed in the Indian Yugas. The Norse were/are nothing if not hip to cause and effect.