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Ragnarok is the end of the world in Norse mythology: the last battle in which the gods and the giants destroy each other and the earth sinks into the sea. Yet it is not the final end: a green world rises again, and a few gods and two humans live on.
What is Ragnarok?
Ragnarok is the foretold end of the world, the doom of the gods, which the Norse knew was coming and could not prevent. It opens with the Fimbulwinter, three years of killing cold with no summer between, as bonds of kin and law give way among humankind — an age of axes and swords, when brother slays brother. The wolves Skoll and Hati at last swallow the sun and moon, the stars go out, and Yggdrasil shudders.
The last battle
Then every chained power breaks loose. Loki and the wolf Fenrir are freed; the Midgard Serpent thrashes ashore and the seas surge up; the nail-ship Naglfar sails with the hosts of the dead. From the south rides the fire-giant Surtr with the sons of Muspel, his sword brighter than the sun, and the rainbow bridge Bifrost shatters beneath them. Heimdall sounds the Gjallarhorn, and the gods and the Einherjar ride out to the plain of Vigrid.
There they fall in fated pairs. Odin is swallowed by Fenrir, and his son Vidar avenges him, tearing the wolf apart. Thor slays the Midgard Serpent but drops dead after nine steps, choked by its venom. Freyr, who long ago gave away his sword, falls to Surtr; Tyr and the hound Garmr kill each other; and Heimdall and Loki meet at last and slay one another. Then Surtr flings fire across all the worlds, and the earth sinks into the sea.
After Ragnarok
Yet this is not the true end. From the water a green earth rises anew, its fields unsown; a handful of gods survive, and Baldr returns from the dead; two humans, Lif and Lifthrasir, who sheltered in a wood, come out to people the world again, and a new sun, daughter of the old, lights their way. The Norse cosmos ends not in nothing, but in renewal — as the seeress foretells in the Voluspa.
Its great deaths: Thor and the World Serpent, Odin and Fenrir, Heimdall and Loki. It begins when Yggdrasil shakes.
Questions
What does Ragnarok mean?
The Old Norse Ragnarök means "the fate of the gods" or "the doom of the gods".
Who kills Odin at Ragnarok?
The wolf Fenrir swallows him. Odin's son Vidar then kills the wolf.
Who survives Ragnarok?
Among the gods, Vidar and Vali, Thor's sons Modi and Magni, and Baldr and Hodr, who come back from the dead. Two humans, Lif and Lifthrasir, live on to people the new world.
Where is Ragnarok told?
Mainly in the poem Voluspa, in the Poetic Edda, and in Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda.