Ragnarök: Every Event, In Order

Ragnarök is the foretold end of the world in Norse mythology: the last battle in which Odin, Thor, Freyr and most of the gods die fighting giants and monsters, and the burning earth sinks into the sea. The Old Norse name means roughly "fate of the gods" or "doom of the gods"; Snorri Sturluson also writes ragnarøkkr, "twilight of the gods." It is not quite the end: a green earth rises again, a handful of gods return, and two humans repeople the world.

Ragnarök quick facts

What does the word Ragnarök mean?

It means "the fate of the gods": regin, the gods as ruling powers, plus rök, fate. Most Eddic poems use this form. Lokasenna and Snorri write ragnarøkkr, "twilight of the gods," the form behind the German Götterdämmerung, which Wagner took as an opera title.

What happens first at Ragnarök?

First comes Fimbulwinter, the "mighty winter," which Snorri calls the first sign. His Gylfaginning describes three winters in a row with no summer between, all snow, frost and keen wind. Yet before them, Snorri adds, come three winters of war across the world, when brothers kill each other out of greed. Völuspá also has brothers fighting, and calls it an axe-age, a sword-age, a wind-age, a wolf-age before the world falls.

Then the sky goes dark. The wolves that chase the sun and moon (Grímnismál and Snorri name them Sköll and Hati) catch and swallow them, and the stars vanish. The earth shakes until trees are uprooted, mountains fall and every fetter snaps. Fenrir breaks free from his island; Loki breaks out of the cave where he was bound after Baldr's death; Jörmungandr, the World Serpent, writhes in giant-rage, and the sea floods the land.

In Völuspá, three roosters crow, including Gullinkambi in Odin's hall and a soot-red one in Hel, and the hound Garm bays before the cave Gnipahellir.

Who fights against the gods at Ragnarök?

Giants, monsters and the dead. In Völuspá, the giant Hrym drives from the east and the ship Naglfar breaks loose. A ship carrying the people of Muspell crosses the sea with Loki at the helm, and Surtr comes from the south with fire.

Snorri reshuffles the crews: in Gylfaginning, Hrym steers Naglfar and Loki leads the people of Hel. Naglfar is built from the untrimmed nails of the dead, Snorri explains, so anyone who dies with uncut nails adds to the ship. Fenrir advances with his jaws gaping from earth to sky, and the bridge Bifröst breaks as the sons of Muspell ride over it behind Surtr. All gather on the plain Vígríðr, which Vafþrúðnismál measures at a hundred leagues each way.

How do the gods know Ragnarök has begun?

Heimdall, the gods' watchman, blows the Gjallarhorn. In Völuspá, Odin then speaks with the head of Mímir; in Snorri's version the blast wakes the gods to an assembly, and Odin rides to Mímir's well for counsel. The ash Yggdrasil shudders and groans.

The gods arm, and so do the einherjar, the chosen dead of Valhalla. Grímnismál counts 540 doors in Valhalla, with 800 warriors passing through each at once when they go out to fight the wolf. Snorri has Odin ride at their head in a golden helmet, carrying his spear Gungnir.

Odin at least musters knowing the outcome, since the seeress of Völuspá has told him, and Thor marches out to meet the serpent. The muster is not hope; it is form.

Who kills whom at Ragnarök?

The battle comes as matched pairs:

Völuspá calls Odin's fall the second sorrow of his wife Frigg, the first being Baldr's death. In Gylfaginning, Víðarr plants one foot in the wolf's lower jaw, wearing a thick shoe made from all the leather scraps people have ever trimmed from their shoes, and tears the mouth apart. The one-handed Týr falls to Garm instead.

Freyr's duel has a backstory. In Skírnismál he gives his sword to his servant Skírnir, who goes to win him the giantess Gerðr, and in Lokasenna Loki taunts him that he will be swordless when the sons of Muspell ride. Love disarmed him long before this morning.

How does Ragnarök end the world?

With fire and flood. Snorri says Surtr flings fire over the earth and burns the whole world. Völuspá gives the image in one stanza: the sun turns black, the earth sinks into the sea, the bright stars fall from heaven, and steam and flame leap up against the sky itself.

What happens after Ragnarök?

The earth rises again from the sea, but each source furnishes the new world differently.

In Völuspá, the earth comes up a second time, ever-green. The surviving gods meet on Iðavöllr and find in the grass the golden game-pieces they owned in the first days. Baldr and Höðr, victim and killer, reconciled, live together in Odin's old halls, and Hœnir chooses the lot-twigs used for divination. The seeress then sees a hall fairer than the sun, thatched with gold, at Gimlé, where worthy people will live in joy forever.

Vafþrúðnismál does not bring Baldr back. In it, Víðarr and Váli live on in the gods' holy places, Thor's sons Móði and Magni inherit Mjölnir, and the sun bears a daughter who rides her mother's path. Two humans, Líf and Lífþrasir, hide in Hoddmímir's wood (often identified by scholars with Yggdrasil) through the Fimbulwinter, live on morning dew, and become the ancestors of a new humanity.

Snorri's Gylfaginning merges both poems: the four young gods settle at Iðavöllr, where Ásgarðr once stood, Baldr and Höðr come back from Hel, and Líf and Lífþrasir survive Surtr's fire. Snorri also names Gimlé in heaven as the best abode for the righteous.

Völuspá does not end in peace, though. Its final stanza brings the dragon Níðhöggr flying with corpses in his wings, and then the seeress sinks back down. Darkness is not abolished, only outlasted.

Is Ragnarök in the past or the future?

In the myths' own telling, it lies in the future. Völuspá is a seeress's vision spoken to Odin: she recounts the past from creation to Baldr's death, then her refrain turns to "I see further ahead" toward the fate of the gods. In Gylfaginning, Snorri's narrator answers Gangleri's questions about Ragnarök in the future tense.

Why do the gods fight a battle they know they will lose?

Because in these myths knowing the ending changes how you live, not whether you fight. Odin spends the mythology preparing for a battle he knows he loses, gathering the einherjar and giving an eye for wisdom. Meaning is not winning; it is showing up armed. And the myth ends with spring. Ragnarök is not nihilism. It is hope with a body count.

In the sources

• Völuspá (Poetic Edda) — the fullest poetic account, a seeress's vision from creation to renewal. It survives in the 13th-century Codex Regius and in Hauksbók, which orders some stanzas differently.
• Vafþrúðnismál (Poetic Edda) — Odin's wisdom contest with a giant: Vígríðr, Fimbulwinter, Líf and Lífþrasir and the surviving gods.
• Grímnismál, Skírnismál, Lokasenna and Fáfnismál (Poetic Edda) — Valhalla's doors, Freyr's lost sword, Loki's taunts, and another name for the battlefield.
• Gylfaginning (Snorri's Prose Edda) — the only continuous narrative, quoting and combining the poems. Snorri was a 13th-century Icelandic Christian, and the order is partly his editorial work.

Contradictions to flag:

• Víðarr's revenge. Völuspá has him drive a sword into the wolf's heart; Vafþrúðnismál and Snorri have him tear its jaws apart.
• Ships and captains. In Völuspá, Loki steers a ship of Muspell's people; in Snorri, Hrym steers Naglfar and Loki leads Hel's people.
• The battlefield. Vafþrúðnismál and Snorri call it Vígríðr; Fáfnismál names it Óskópnir.
• Two duels. Týr vs Garm and Heimdall vs Loki appear only in Snorri.
• Survivors. Völuspá names Baldr, Höðr and Hœnir; Vafþrúðnismál names Víðarr, Váli, Móði and Magni; Snorri keeps all but Hœnir. Vafþrúðnismál hides Líf and Lífþrasir through Fimbulwinter, Snorri through Surtr's fire.
• Christian influence. Scholars debate whether the renewal, Gimlé and a Hauksbók stanza about a mighty ruler coming to judgment reflect Christian ideas. For the worldview behind this ending, see Norse vs Greek Gods: Key Differences.

In popular culture

• Wagner. Götterdämmerung (1876), the last Ring opera, takes Snorri's "twilight of the gods" as its title and ends with Valhalla in flames, but its plot comes mostly from Germanic hero legend.
• Marvel. Thor: Ragnarok (2017) keeps the name, the fire giant Surtur, a giant wolf and the destruction of Asgard. Making Hela Odin's daughter is invented; in the myths Hel is Loki's daughter.
• God of War Ragnarök (2022). It opens in Fimbulwinter and builds on prophecy and a doomed march, but it rewrites who fights whom and how the gods die.

Keep exploring

The brightest promise of the renewed world is Baldur: The Norse God Whose Death Began Ragnarök — his death started the countdown, his return ends it. The wolf that kills Odin waits in Fenrir: The Wolf Destined to Kill Odin. And the dragon that outlasts even the fire gnaws in Yggdrasil: The World Tree Explained.