Kazup Vigil
Ms. Cole
British Lit 3rd Period
22 August, 2017
Ragnarok: The Destruction and Recreation of the Cosmos An infinite cycle of destruction and then recreation. In ancient Norse mythology, Ragnarok or “The Doom of the Gods” is a series of events taking place in the future in which the cosmos is destroyed, along with multiple important figures (Odin, Thor, Tyr, Freya, Heimdallr, and Loki), and then recreated anew and fertile, with the remaining gods rebuilding, and the 2 humans left in the end repopulating the new green world. Ragnarok is important because unlike the Christian “End Times” Ragnarok describes a cyclical end to the world, the end and beginning are points on a circle rather than on a straight line, with destruction comes recreation instead of total annihilation of everything in
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Not all life was destroyed either, a few gods survived, and 2 humans, a man and a woman, Lif and Lifthrasir, survived as well and repopulated the green world. Other gods are also reborn later in different forms, and a new set of gods is created. The word ‘Ragnarok’ has a double meaning, it means “The doom of the gods” and also, “The twilight of the gods.” This is important because it gives insight on the true meaning of Ragnarok, a cyclical end to the world, the Ragnarok described in this prophecy is only one of many, an eternal cycle of destruction and creation. This really reflects Norse culture so well and gives insight on why a cyclical end would make so much sense to them. This Ideology applies to so many things in the world, the cycle of life, death, and rebirth, the phases of the moon, day and night, the cycle of seasons, and so much more. Everything is a cycle, everything has a “doom” and a “twilight,” this view was obviously extremely important to Norse beliefs and even
Roman and Greek mythology are filled with multiple interpretations of how the creator, be it the gods or nature, contributed to the birth of the world. These stories draw the backgrounds of the gods and goddesses that govern much of classical mythology. Ovid’s Metamorphoses and Hesiod’s Theogony are two pieces of work that account for how our universe came to be. A comparison of Theogony with Metamorphoses reveals that Hesiod’s creation story portrays the deities as omnipresent, powerful role whose actions triggered the beginning of the universe whereas in Metamorphoses, the deities do not play a significant role; rather the humans are center of the creation. The similarities and differences are evident in the construction of the universe, ages of man, and the creation of men and women on earth.
with a vivid imagery of a world that was already falling apart, prior to humanity’s infliction upon
This would prove fatal to the Vikings fundamental way of life, replacing nomadic behaviours and small communities with settled kingdoms. Norse paganism was undoubtedly the most unique thing about Vikings and their culture, but that all changed when Christianity took Scandinavia by storm. Much of northern Europe is covered in rocky surfaces and mountain ranges, because of this Vikings found it difficult to be self-reliant economically, and so trade became the centre of their economy. But when trade became less profitable and travel ground to a halt, Vikings saw an early version of an economic depression. The great beast of the north, Scandinavia, was brought to her knees as royal authority replaced individually ruled fiefdoms, as Christianity dominated Norse paganism, and as its trade-reliant economy fell vulnerable to mass climate change. The once mighty nation now remains only an extension of
Norse legend says that when Loki breaks free on the day of Ragnarok he will exact his revenge. He will show just how dark he is and what his twisted mind is capable of. On that day he will lead the giants and monsters into battle against the gods because of the torture that he was made to endure (“Loki”).
Mythology is a staple in many different cultures, and holds different meanings for different people. In Northern Europe, many worshipped the gods found in Norse mythology, especially the Viking people. In this mythology these gods created the world and humankind, living in the world tree Yggdrasil. Many important characters play vital roles in these mythologies, but one name appears more often than others, Loki. Loki and his children play many roles in Norse Mythology, such as his daughter serving the dead in Hel. Not falling in battle and going to Hel is a fate many warriors did not wish; yet one which befell one of their most beloved gods. Loki and his children are also destined to bring about the end of all things, called
The plot of the film is a sort of amalgamation of different Norse myths, of which one is the creation myth. Thor sets up the beginning of the
There also seems to be some conflict between the control of fate or “wergild” or God in the outcome of events. At the beginning of the poem, Beowulf says that the outcome of the fight with Grendel will be decided by fate, “Fate goes ever as fate must” (line 455). However, when Beowulf defeats Grendel’s mother, he credits his victory to God, “…holy God decided the victory” (line 1553). This could suggest that although the conversion to Christianity may have been complete by the time this epic was written, elements of Pagan society do not disappear so easily.
God, after a long period of time sees that things are no longer good. The first murder happens not long after creation. Cain kills his brother Abel and it is made clear that this is not acceptable. From there things just get worse. So God contacts Noah and says to take him and all of his family and build an ark big enough to fit a pair of each type of creature. Once this is done and every God said to be is on the ark, he floods the earth. This destroys everything living thing not on the ark all because it had become complete and utter chaos. Once the ark lands, God promises to never do that again. This is different than Brahma because each age of the four ages has a set number of years and once that is up, the earth is destroyed and recreated again. No one knows how many worlds before or how many worlds after the present one, but with God, he was only destroyed the world once and promises never to do that
But the reason this all started, the reason everyone wanted to leave Earth. A disease spread, no one was expecting it to ever happen. One day everyone is flourishing, then a world wide earthquake hit. The world was ending. People were dying. No one wanted this disease, but there wasn't any
The Bible was began to be followed at the end of the Viking era.(The total structure of this sentence is messed up.) I wonder how much Christianity affected the downfall of the Viking’s, below I did some research on the topic. The Viking era existed from 800 BC to 1200 BC (“From Viking to Crusader”). (This is supposed to be cited with the author name and page in brackets.) The Vikings have three main religions throughout there period of existence. Each of the religions affected the character of the Vikings in a big way. Polytheism was the belief the Vikings had in the beginning of there existence. Paganism and Christianity came towards the end of the Viking era. Christianity arrived during the 10th and 11th BC (“The Viking to Crusader”). Polytheism was the most heavily practiced religion the Vikings had. The main god of the Vikings was Odin who was the god of war wisdom and poetry (“Viking Fury”). There isn’t much documentation from history about Odin and other gods of the Vikings. Odin was mirrored by the Vikings to be a great warrior, and be poets. Vikings felt it was an honor to die in battle because Odin would be grateful (“Viking Fury”). Paganism was another religion of the Vikings.
As with many religions, before the world was created, there was a great abyss. In Norse mythology, this abyss was known as Ginnungagap and at one end, there was elemental fire and the other end had elemental ice. Where these two ends met, frost was formed and Ymir (a frost giant) was formed. Also, due to this phenomenon, a cow called Audhumbla emerged. These two beings lived in harmony with each other and the “world” around them. Audhumbla found her nourishment from the salt licks formed around her and she in turn gave Ginnungagap milk. As Audhumbla was licking the salt licks, Buri emerged, making him the first of the Norse gods. Buri then had a son named Bor. Bor and Bestla (a giantess) had three sons named Odin, Vili, and Ve. These three brothers preceded to kill Ymir and scattered his body throughout the abyss, creating the world. The brothers then created Ask and Embla (the first humans). Odin was responsible for giving them spirit and life. Therefore he is mainly credited for the creation of the humans. The other brothers split up other major attributes of the humans. Since Odin had a major part in the creation of life, he is known as the “Giver of life” (Anderberg, 2015). However, life isn’t the last thing he gave to the world and this wasn’t Odin’s last
The End of All Things has a meaning to the story, in the story it discusses about terrible horrid weather catastrophes that caused a plethora of destruction to the landscape. The first was a winter that never ended even when it came to be summer it was still icy cold with a biting wind and nothing to divide the cold to make it the least bit bearable. Second was continuous earthquakes and floods, the earthquakes would make mountains tremble, and rocks would be torn from the earth, and the sea would engulf fields and forests. The last was a great fire would sweep over all land and anything in its path would instantaneously be destroyed. While all of this destruction of everything that humanity had grown to make and become would soon all be wiped
“When owing to floods, famines, failure of crops or other such causes there occurs such a destruction of the human race as tradition tells us has more than once happened, and as we must believe will often happen again.” (Polybius, Histories, 6.5).
...’s claim of ignorance. Instead of the purely eschatological view of a timeline with a fixed conclusion, time within Nose mythology could instead be represented in the form of a cycle with Ragnarok poised waiting at both the beginning and the end. The event which Odin describes as yet to occur could have already happened numerous times, and knowledge of the imperceptible “events of the world further into the future” would be the imperceptible from knowledge of the events of the world backward into the past. Combined with the inclusion of fate, this theory presents a singular closed system which simply repeats, unchanged into infinity.
The factors that lead to the “collapse” of civilizations are almost directly related to those that created it. Archaeologists characterize collapse by a number of elements, some of which we have evidence for, others we do not. Most archaeologists are unsure of exactly what caused the decline of most civilizations in the ancient world, yet there are many clues to some of the events that could have contributed. The collapse of the ancient Roman Empire, the Mesoamerican Mayan, and the Egyptian cultures will be discussed in the following paragraphs, with a focus on the uniqueness of each.