Norse Mythology

Mythological worldview

The Norse worldview as we can best distill from the various sources boils down to the following general idea. There were four phases: the process in which the world - and everything in it - was created; a dynamic phase in which time is started; the destruction of the world in the Ragnarök; and the arising of a new world from the sea.

ODIN, VILI, AND VÉ KILL YMIR & CREATE THE EARTH FROM HIS FLESH, THE SKY FROM HIS SKULL, MOUNTAINS FROM HIS BONES & THE SEA FROM HIS BLOOD.

According to Snorri, before anything else existed there were the opposing realms of icy Niflheim and fiery Muspelheim (which other sources simply call Muspell). Although seemingly safely separated by the empty void Ginnungagap, the cold and heat expanded to meet after all, resulting in Muspelheim's fire melting the ice, from which two assumingly dripping wet figures emerged: the (proto-)giant Ymir and the cow Audhumla. By licking the ice Audhumla uncovered Búri, forefather of the gods, whose son Borr teamed up with giant-daughter Bestla to sire the first gods, Odin, Vili, and Vé. These three then took advantage of Ymir's convenient size by killing him and using his remains to create the world; the earth from his flesh, the sky from his skull, mountains from his bones and the sea from his blood. The first human couple, Ask and Embla, were fashioned out of two trees or pieces of wood.

With humans popping up, a new phase begins; time has started, and all the gods and other creatures and their respective realms are off doing their own thing up until the Ragnarök. The World Tree Yggdrasil, the axis of time and space, stands in the gods' home realm of Asgard while its roots encompass all the other realms, including Midgard, where the humans reside, and the giants' abode Jotunheim. A dragon of called Nidhogg chomps on said roots, all while the three fates (known as Norns) spin the fates of human lives at the tree's base. As the Prose Edda tells it:

Ash Yggdrasill | suffers anguish,

More than men know of:

The stag bites above; | on the side it rotteth,

And Nídhöggr gnaws from below.

(Gylfaginning 16).

As if a giant tree were not enough, the surrounding sea is inhabited by the Midgard Serpent (also known as Jörmungandr), a monster who twists and coils itself around the world.

Eventually, these fairly peachy worldly conditions snowball into chaos and culminate in the Ragnarök, the 'final destiny of the gods', for which our main source is the 10th-century CE Völuspá . It starts with a terrible winter. The earth sinks into the sea, the wolf Fenrir (often referred to as the Fenris-wolf) breaks loose and devours the sun, and, as the icing on the already crumbling cake, mighty Yggdrasil shakes and the bridge Bifröst – the express-way between Asgard and Midgard – collapses. Understandably rattled, the gods hold an emergency council to prepare for against the powers of the Underworld, who are closing in. The Prose Edda heralds that:

Brothers shall strive | and slaughter each other;

Own sisters' children | shall sin together;

Ill days among men, | many a whoredom:

An axe-age, a sword-age, | shields shall be cloven;

A wind-age, a wolf-age, | ere the world totters.

(Gylfaginning 51).

Odin fights Fenrir but falls, after which the god Vidarr avenges him, while Thor destroys the Midgard Serpent but succumbs to its poison. The gods and their foes die left, right, and centre, until the giant Surtr goes pyromaniac and kindles the world-fire that destroys everything.

Luckily, phoenix-style, the destruction is not the end. Following a cyclical concept of the world, a new world rises – not from the ashes, but from the sea. Only a handful of gods are still standing, but the new world will have a new generation of gods as well as humankind, to live happily ever after.