60 Fun Facts About Ragnarök

The Old Norse word ragnarök is usually interpreted as meaning what?

The final destiny of the gods is no surprise to them: prophecy has already named the wolf that will kill Odin. When the day comes, they still put on their armour and ride out to meet it.

The variant spelling ragnarøkkr gives which alternative translation, made famous by the title of a Wagner opera?

Twilight of the Gods is Götterdämmerung in German, the title Wagner gave his opera on the downfall of the gods. Its last scene shows Valhalla and every god inside it going up in flames.

Which name is given to the slain warriors who march out of Valhalla with Odin to fight at Ragnarök?

Einherjar spend every day in Valhalla fighting and felling one another, then ride home to drink together. It is practice for one battle, and the Prose Edda warns that even this host will seem too small when the wolf comes.

Which poem, the first in the Poetic Edda, has a seeress tell Odin how the world will end at Ragnarök?

Völuspá does not stop at the fire: the seeress's vision runs on to a green earth rising again from the sea, where fields ripen without being sown.

According to the Prose Edda, what is the first sign of Ragnarök?

Fimbulwinter, three winters with no summer between them, buries the world in snow while the sun gives no warmth. The word outlived the myth: Scandinavians still call a long, hard winter a fimbulvinter.

Odin's death at Ragnarök is described as the second great sorrow of which goddess, his wife?

Frigg had already lost her son Baldr, the first of her two sorrows. She had made fire, water, stones and beasts all swear never to harm him, and it was not enough.

In the Prose Edda, which wolf chases the sun across the sky and will catch her at Ragnarök?

Sköll hunts the sun while a second wolf, Hati, runs down the moon. One Eddic poem tells it differently and has Fenrir himself snatch the sun from the sky.

Fenrir, Jörmungandr and Hel are all children of Loki and which jötunn?

Angrboða bore the three in Jötunheim, and prophecy soon warned the gods about them. Odin had the serpent flung into the sea, sent Hel down to rule the dead, and kept the wolf where he could watch it.

The dwarf-made fetter that held Fenrir until Ragnarök was called what?

Gleipnir was as soft and smooth as a silk ribbon, yet it held where two great iron chains had snapped. The dwarfs made it from impossible things, among them a cat's footfall and a woman's beard.

When Fenrir was bound, which god lost his right hand as the pledge placed in the wolf's mouth?

Týr was the only god who had dared to feed the wolf as it grew. When the fetter held and the gods would not undo it, Fenrir bit down, and every one of them laughed except Týr.

In the Prose Edda, why do the gods chain Fenrir instead of killing him?

It would defile holy ground: the gods revered their sanctuary too much to stain it with the wolf's blood. They spared him knowing full well from prophecy that he would one day kill Odin.

Which of Odin's sons, known as the silent god, avenges him by tearing Fenrir's jaws apart?

Víðarr plants one foot on the wolf's lower jaw, seizes the upper and tears. One Eddic poem gives him a plainer revenge: a sword driven straight into the beast's heart.

The thick shoe a god plants on Fenrir's jaw at Ragnarök is said to be made from what?

Discarded scraps of leather: the bits trimmed off at toe and heel, piling up since time began. The Prose Edda adds that anyone who wants to help the gods should throw such offcuts away.

Thor kills the Midgard Serpent at Ragnarök but then manages only how many steps before the venom kills him?

Nine paces, and Thor falls dead from the venom the serpent has blown over him. The two were old enemies: he once hooked it on a fishing line baited with an ox's head, and it got away.

Thrown into the sea by Odin, Jörmungandr grew until he could circle Midgard and do what?

Bite his own tail, closing a ring around the whole world. At Ragnarök he writhes ashore in a giant rage, and the sea comes flooding over the land behind him.

Which fire jötunn advances from the south at Ragnarök with a sword brighter than the sun?

Surtr sits on guard at the border of Muspell, the fire realm that is older than the earth. Once the gods have fallen, he flings flame over the whole world and burns it.

In Thor: Ragnarok, Hela's blade costs Thor what in their final fight on Asgard?

His right eye goes, and Thor ends the film in an eyepatch like his father's. In the myths it is Odin who gave up an eye, as the price of a single drink from the well of wisdom.

Which god falls to the fire giant at Ragnarök, having given away a sword to the messenger Skírnir?

Freyr fell for a giant's daughter at first sight, and his servant's price for winning her was the god's own sword, a blade that fought by itself. At Ragnarök he has to face the flames without it.

The ship Naglfar, which breaks loose at Ragnarök, is made of what?

The nails of the dead are its timber, so the Prose Edda warns against burying anyone with nails untrimmed: every clipping left on a corpse helps finish the ship that gods and men want built late.

In Thor: Ragnarok, Thor and Loki find the dying Odin in which country?

Norway is where Odin chooses to die. His people later make it their home: by Avengers: Endgame the survivors of Asgard have settled in the same Norwegian town and renamed it New Asgard.

Which god raises the Gjallarhorn and blows it to wake the gods for battle?

Heimdall can hear grass growing and needs less sleep than a bird, which is why the gods post him as watchman at the end of the rainbow bridge. One blast of his horn carries through every world.

In Thor: Ragnarok, which sorcerer opens a portal that sends Thor and Loki to their father Odin?

Doctor Strange helps on one condition: that the brothers leave Earth as soon as they have their father. He also drops Loki through a portal of his own first and leaves him falling for half an hour.

Which two figures kill each other in single combat at Ragnarök?

Loki and Heimdall are old enemies who once fought in the shape of seals over a goddess's necklace. At Ragnarök Loki arrives leading the dead of Hel, and each of the two strikes the other down.

Which monster, chained before the cave Gnipahellir, breaks loose at Ragnarök and dies fighting a god?

Garmr gets two very different notices: one Eddic poem ranks him the best of all hounds, as Odin is the best of gods, while the Prose Edda calls him the greatest of monsters. He and his opponent kill each other.

Where is the last battle of Ragnarök fought, on ground said to stretch a hundred leagues in every direction?

Vígríðr comes up in a contest of wits: a giant asks his disguised guest where the gods will meet the fire in battle, and the guest, Odin, answers correctly. Another poem makes the battlefield an island, Óskópnir.

What happens to Bifröst, the rainbow bridge, when the sons of Muspell ride across it?

It collapses beneath them. The Prose Edda defends the builders: no other work was made with more skill, but nothing in the world can be relied on once the sons of Muspell ride out.

Odin rides into the last battle of Ragnarök carrying which weapon?

Gungnir was forged by dwarfs and handed over by Loki as part of his amends for cutting off Sif's hair. It is said never to stop in its thrust, and the wolf swallows Odin all the same.

As Ragnarök nears, three of which creature sound the alarm in three different worlds?

Roosters wake all three sides for the fight: golden-combed Gullinkambi rouses Odin's heroes in Valhalla, red Fjalar crows to the giants, and a soot-red bird with no name wakes the dead in Hel.

What does the world tree Yggdrasil do as the battle of Ragnarök draws near?

Shudders and groans, and after that the old texts fall silent: nothing says what becomes of the tree. Some scholars think the two humans who outlive the fire do so hidden inside it.

In the Prose Edda, Loki lies bound until Ragnarök with the entrails of which of his sons?

Narfi was torn apart by his own brother, whom the gods had changed into a wolf for the purpose. They stretched Loki across three stones, tied him down with the entrails, and the bonds turned to iron.

What natural phenomenon is explained by Loki writhing when the venom reaches his face?

Earthquakes are Loki's agony. His wife Sigyn holds a bowl above his face to catch a serpent's venom, and each time she turns away to empty it the drops land and he wrenches against his bonds.

Baldr's death, which sets Ragnarök in motion, was caused by a dart of what?

Mistletoe was the one thing that had sworn no oath to spare him: his mother had judged the plant too young to ask. Loki found out, cut a shoot and steered a blind god's hand as he threw it.

When Hel agreed to free Baldr if all things wept for him, who alone refused?

The giantess Þökk, found sitting in a cave, answered that she would weep only dry tears and that Hel could keep what she had. The Prose Edda adds that people took her for Loki in disguise.

Which two gods return from Hel to live together in the renewed world after Ragnarök?

Baldr and Höðr come back as friends, though one killed the other: it was blind Höðr who threw the dart that sent his brother down to Hel. In the new world the two sit and talk over old times.

What do the surviving gods find lying in the grass at Iðavöllr after Ragnarök?

Golden game pieces: the gods had played with them in the world's first days, when they wanted for nothing. After the fire the survivors come upon the same set lying in the new grass.

Thor's sons Móði and Magni survive Ragnarök and inherit which of his possessions?

His hammer, Mjölnir, passes to the two sons once the fires die down. Magni had shown his strength early: at three nights old he heaved a dead giant's foot off his pinned father when no god could shift it.

The two human survivors who repopulate the world after Ragnarök are named what?

Líf and Lífþrasir are names Odin has to coax out of a giant: in a contest of wits he asks which of mankind will live through the end, and is told of a woman and a man hidden in a wood.

What do the two human survivors of Ragnarök live on while they hide from the fire?

The morning dew is all they have to eat while the world burns around their hiding place. It proves enough: the Prose Edda says their descendants will be so many that the whole earth is peopled again.

After the wolf devours the sun at Ragnarök, what takes her place?

Her daughter, following her mother's path, is born just before the wolf strikes. The Prose Edda calls it a wonder: the new sun will be no less fair than the one that was swallowed.

Odin, in disguise, beats the giant Vafþrúðnir in a contest of wits by asking what?

What he told his dead son on the funeral pyre is something only Odin can know. The giant, who had staked his head on the contest, sees at once who his guest must be and that he has lost.

In the Prose Edda, oath-breakers and murderers are doomed to a hall on Náströnd built from what?

The spines of snakes are woven into its walls like wattle, and every head points inward, spitting venom until rivers of it run across the floor for the guilty to wade. Its doors face north, away from the sun.

The poem that foretells Ragnarök lists dwarfs named Thorin, Fíli and Kíli, and one whose name Tolkien gave to which wizard?

Gandalf was first the name of the chief dwarf: in Tolkien's early drafts of The Hobbit the wizard was called Bladorthin. Tolkien later gave the name to the wizard and renamed the dwarf leader Thorin.

A Viking-age stone monument in Cumbria sets carvings read as Ragnarök scenes beside which Christian scene?

The Crucifixion shares the shaft of the Gosforth Cross with what looks like a god forcing open a monster's jaws. One reading is that Norse settlers' own stories of the world's end were being used to teach the new faith.

Some scholars think the blackened sun and sky-high flames of the Ragnarök prophecy were inspired by what?

Volcanic eruptions in Iceland unfold much as the prophecy does, and the Laki eruption of 1783 is the closest match on record. One scholar went further and read the fire giant himself as a volcano demon.

In Thor: Ragnarok, Thor is sold as a gladiator and made to fight in which tournament?

Contest of Champions bouts are meant to end one way. Thor is winning his, lightning and all, when the host cheats and sets off the control disc on Thor's neck so that the reigning champion keeps the title.

Reports that Ragnarök would arrive on 22 February 2014 were tied to a Viking festival in which English city?

York's Jorvik Viking Centre had put the date about itself, to draw crowds to the last weekend of its 30th Viking festival. The festival's director told one paper the day 'should not be underestimated'.

Wagner's opera Götterdämmerung, named for Ragnarök, is the last part of which work?

The Ring of the Nibelung is so vast that Wagner had a theatre built at Bayreuth to stage it. The four operas were first played there complete in August 1876, with this one closing the run.

Who directed the 2017 Marvel film Thor: Ragnarok?

Taika Waititi also plays Korg, the gladiator made of rocks. He wanted the huge creature soft-spoken, and said he borrowed the gentle voice from Polynesian bouncers.

In the God of War games, which boy, the son of Kratos, learns that the giants know him as Loki?

Atreus was his father's choice of name, after a Spartan comrade he admired. His mother, a giant, had called the boy Loki among her own people, and that is the name their prophecies use.

Netflix's series Ragnarok, with a teenage Thor reborn, ties the old myth to which modern threat?

Climate change is the giants' doing here: they pass as the Jutuls, the factory-owning family of a small town, and their plants are poisoning it while the glaciers melt.

Whose fairy tale 'The Marsh King's Daughter' includes a dream of Ragnarök?

Hans Christian Andersen gives the dream to a Viking chieftain's wife: she hears the war horn, watches the gods ride out in steel over the rainbow bridge, and sees darkness win.

In Thor: Ragnarok, who plays Hela, the goddess of death revealed as Thor's older sister?

Cate Blanchett's Hela is Odin's firstborn only on screen. In the myths the ruler of the dead, Hel, is Loki's daughter and a sister of the wolf Fenrir.

In Thor: Ragnarok, on which garbage planet, surrounded by wormholes, does Thor crash-land and become a gladiator?

Sakaar runs on its own clock. Hela knocks both brothers out of the Bifröst, yet Loki lands so much earlier that he has already charmed his way into the ruler's inner circle.

Tessa Thompson's Valkyrie in Thor: Ragnarok is based on which figure from Norse legend?

Brynhildr is the valkyrie the dragon-slayer Sigurd finds asleep in full armour on a mountain; he wakes her by cutting the mail coat from her body. Marvel's comics keep the link plain and call the character Brunnhilde.

Mark Ruffalo's return let Thor: Ragnarok adapt elements of which 2006 comic storyline?

Planet Hulk begins when Earth's other heroes decide the Hulk is too dangerous to keep, trick him aboard a shuttle and fire it out of the Solar System. He comes down on an alien world and is made a gladiator.

Which Led Zeppelin track features in both the trailer and the film Thor: Ragnarok?

Immigrant Song. Robert Plant wrote its Viking lyrics after the band played Iceland in 1970, and the film's director scored his pitch reel to it, which helped win him the job.

In Thor: Ragnarok, which Asgardian warrior played by Karl Urban becomes Hela's executioner?

Skurge. He joins Hela to save his own skin, then switches sides at the end and dies holding off her undead army with two M16 rifles he brought back from Earth.

Which Rick Riordan hero sails to stop the ship Naglfar launching and bringing on Ragnarök?

Magnus Chase. In the trilogy's last book he beats Loki in a flyting, a duel of insults, by praising his friends instead, and the god shrinks small enough to shut inside a walnut.

Which Hollywood star cameos in Thor: Ragnarok as an Asgardian actor playing Loki on stage?

Matt Damon. The joke is that Loki, secretly ruling Asgard, has staged a play glorifying himself with a star in his role; Damon had already played a fallen angel called Loki in 1999's Dogma.

God of War Ragnarök launched in 2022 only on which company's consoles?

Sony. The PlayStation sequel slipped a year, and Kratos actor Christopher Judge later said he was the reason: he needed hip, back and knee surgery, and the studio waited while he recovered.