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*Includes pictures *Includes medieval accounts *Includes online resources and a bibliography for further reading "Brothers shall fight - and fell each other, And sisters' sons - shall kinship stain; Hard is it on earth, - with mighty whoredom; Axe-time, sword-time, - shields are sundered, Wind-time, wolf-time, - ere the world falls; Nor ever shall men - each other spare." One of the most fascinating elements of Norse cosmology is the fact that its end is foretold in crushing detail. This end of times will come about in a mighty battle called "Ragnar k", an event translated as either "the Fate of the Gods" or (in Richard Wagner's re-imagining) "the Twilight of the Gods." Moreover, not only is the event foretold, but the characters of this drama seem to know of its coming. This is in line with the Germanic faith in the concept of "fate." For the German pagans, fate or destiny was an integral part of human existence; while people may not know them ahead of time, their stories are written before they are born, and this was true of the gods as well. Although the gods seem to accept their fates, this concept was not the same as that of "destiny" in Christianity (especially Calvinist pre-destination), because the Norse believed that fate could perhaps be warped and shifted. According to historian Rudolph Simek, Ragnar k, the "Final Destiny of the Gods," was comprised of four principal cataclysmic events: the Fimbulwinter, a mighty winter that lasted three years; Surtr's "world fire"

Ragnarok: The Origins and History of the Apocalypse in Norse Mythology, Paperback/Charles River Editors

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