Ragnarök

Ragnarök is attested in the Old Norse poetic corpus, principally the Poetic Edda (Völuspá, stanzas narrating the signs and sequence of the catastrophe) and summarized or paraphrased in the Prose Edda. The compound Old Norse name appears in forms ragnarǫk (commonly read as ragna + rök, 'the gods' fate' or 'the ruling powers' doom') and ragnarøkkr (interpreted via røkkr 'twilight' as 'twilight of the gods'). Scholars note both readings in the literature: the rök element carries senses of 'fate, cause, origin' while the røkkr reading connects to 'growing dark' and yielded later calques such as German Götterdämmerung. The narrative frames Ragnarök as a foretold, terminal cycle rather than an animate being.

Ragnarök is not embodied as a single form but is narrated through a series of signs, agents, and cosmological phenomena in the Eddic poems. Attested elements include three roosters crowing (one in Valhalla and a soot-red rooster in Hel), the barking/howling and breaking of bindings of the hound Garmr, the shuddering or groaning of the world-tree Yggdrasil, the ship Naglfar setting sail, the advance of Surtr from the south with a sword of flame, the rising and thrashing of Jörmungandr, and the mass movement of jötnar and other foes to the final battle.

Rendered as a sequence of effects rather than agentive powers, the texts describe wide-scale destructive occurrences: a great battle in which principal deities die (Odin devoured by Fenrir; Thor and Jörmungandr slay one another; Freyr falls to Surtr; Heimdall and Loki kill each other), catastrophic natural phenomena (the sun darkens, stars vanish, steam and flames reach the heavens), the earth sinks into the sea, and widespread death among humans. The narrative also describes renewal: after the world is consumed and submerged, the earth resurfaces cleansed and fertile and survivors among the gods and two humans—Líf and Lífþrasir—repopulate the renewed world.