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there is everything I have attached it and please read it carefully...thank you screen_shot_2020_01_18_at_3.44.51_pm.png the_creation_of_the_cosmos__1_.docx ragnarok.docx .pdf Unformatted Attachment Preview 1 THE CREATION OF THE COSMOS BY DANIEL MCCOY Ymir being slain by Odin and his brothers (Lorenz Frølich) The Norse creation myth or cosmogony (an account of the origins of the cosmos) is perhaps one of the richest in all of world literature. First, let’s look at this exceptionally colorful story itself, then consider how the Vikings may have interpreted it and found meaning in it. The Origin of the Cosmos Before there was soil, or sky, or any green thing, there was only the gaping abyss of Ginnungagap. This chaos of perfect silence and darkness lay between the homeland of elemental fire, Muspelheim, and the homeland of elemental ice, Niflheim. Frost from Niflheim and billowing flames from Muspelheim crept toward each other until they met in Ginnungagap. Amid the hissing and sputtering, the fire melted the ice, and the drops formed themselves into Ymir (“Screamer”[1]), the first of the godlike but destructive giants. Ymir was a hermaphrodite and could reproduce asexually; when he slept, more giants leapt forth from his legs and from the sweat of his armpits. As the frost continued to melt, a cow, Audhumla (“Abundance of Humming”[2]), emerged from it. She nourished Ymir with her milk, and she, in turn, was nourished by salt-licks in the ice. Her licks slowly uncovered Buri (“Progenitor”[3]), the first of the Aesir tribe of gods. Buri had a son named Bor (“Son”[4]), who married Bestla (perhaps “Wife”[5]), the daughter of the giant Bolthorn (“Baleful Thorn”[6]). The half-god, half-giant children of Bor and Bestla were Odin, who became the chief of the Aesir gods, and his two brothers, Vili and Ve. Odin and his brothers slew Ymir and set about constructing the world from his corpse. They fashioned the oceans from his blood, the soil from his skin and muscles, vegetation from his hair, 2 clouds from his brains, and the sky from his skull. Four dwarves, corresponding to the four cardinal points, held Ymir’s skull aloft above the earth. The gods eventually formed the first man and woman, Ask and Embla, from two tree trunks, and built a fence around their dwelling-place, Midgard, to protect them from the giants.[7][8][9][10] Order from Chaos Thematically, Ymir is the personification of the chaos before creation, which is also depicted as the impersonal void of Ginnungagap. Both Ymir and Ginnungagap are ways of talking about limitless potential that isn’t actualized, that hasn’t yet become the particular things that we find in the world around us. This is why the Vikings described it as a void (as have countless other peoples; consider the “darkness upon the face of the deep” of the first chapter of Genesis, for example). It is no-thing-ness. But it nevertheless contains the basic stuff out of which the gods can make true things – in this case, the primal matter is Ymir’s body, which the gods tear apart to craft the elements. It’s extremely fitting for Ymir to be the progenitor of the giants, for this is the general role the giants occupy in Norse myth. They are the forces of formless chaos, who are always threatening to corrupt and ultimately overturn the gods’ created order (and at Ragnarok, they succeed). But the giants are more than just forces of destruction. In the words of medievalist Margaret Clunies Ross: Characteristically […] the gods covet important natural resources which the giants own, then steal them and turn them to their own advantage by utilising them to create culture, that is, they put the giants’ raw materials to work for themselves. These raw materials are of diverse kinds and include intellectual capital such as the ability to brew ale as well as the cauldron in which it is made, and abstractions made concrete like the mead of poetry and the runes of wisdom.[11] Not only does Ymir fit this pattern; mythologically speaking, his death and dismemberment is the paradigmatic model for this pattern. This also explains why Ymir is depicted as a hermaphrodite who can reproduce on his own asexually. Differentiation, including sexual differentiation, didn’t exist yet. The gods had to create that as part of their task of giving differentiated forms to what had previously been formless and undifferentiated. Various other creation myths from other peoples have used a hermaphroditic being to illustrate this same concept,[12] so we can be confident that this is also what the Norse meant here – despite the superficial counterexample of Audhumla and her udder. (After all, Norse mythology was never an airtight system.) Ymir’s name provides an additional – and rather poetic – instantiation of this role as the personification of primordial chaos. Recall that Ymir’s name means “Screamer” (from the Old Norse verb ymja, “to scream”[13]). The scream, the wordless voice, is the raw material from which words are made. By taking formless matter – represented by Ymir’s body – and giving it form, the gods were, metaphorically speaking, making words out of a scream. 3 The metaphor is completed by the description of the act of creation in the Old Norse poem Völuspá. There, the verb used for the action by which the gods create the world is yppa, which has a range of meanings: “lift, raise, bring up, come into being, proclaim, reveal.”[14] The primary sense in which yppa should be understood here is “to come into being,” but note the additional shade of “to proclaim.” Given the poetic symmetry with Ymir’s name, this is surely not coincidental. The gods proclaim the world into being as they sculpt it out of the Screamer’s corpse.[15] The Centrality of Conflict The Vikings, like the other ancient Germanic peoples, were and are notorious for their eagerness for battle. It should come as little surprise, therefore, that conflict is such a central theme in their creation myth – and that conflict is itself a generative force. Ymir is born from the strife between fire and ice – and we can surmise that that particular opposition would have had a special poignancy for people living what was more or less a subsistence lifestyle in the cold lands of Scandinavia and the North Atlantic. In order for the gods to fashion the world, they must first slay Ymir. This is the first intentional taking of a life in the universe, and it’s performed by the gods themselves. It isn’t presented as a crime or a sin, as in the Biblical myth of Cain and Abel. Rather, it’s a good and even sacred task. This isn’t to say that the Norse valorized killing as such; clearly, they distinguished between lawful and appropriate killing and unlawful and inappropriate killing. But they embraced what they saw as the necessity of having a warlike approach to life, for the sake of accomplishing great deeds that brought honor and renown to one’s name. Of course, gods forming the world from the corpse of a being of chaos is a fairly common element in myth. But the precise set of meaningscontained in such an act varies from culture to culture. Surely this glorification of honorable aggression, and its status as the defining act that makes the world what it is, were central components of the meaning the Vikings found in their particular myth. Both Giants and Gods Define the World The Norse saw their gods as the “pillars” and “vital forces” that held the cosmos together. When the gods created the world, they imparted both order and sanctity to it. And since the Norse gods are frequently portrayed intervening in the world’s affairs, their gifts to the world weren’t thought to end with creation. Their defining role in the cosmos was thought to continue as long as the cosmos itself continued – that is, until Ragnarok. And yet, since the world was formed from the corpse of a giant, it would seem that the world is what it is largely due to the influence of the giants as well. Aspects of Ymir – his might, his uncouthness, his tendency toward entropy, the ambivalence of his character – remained present in the world, even after the gods had shaped it in accordance with a different set of traits and aims. The giants, too, were thought to intervene in the world; the slaying of their ancestor by no means vanquished them. 4 In the Norse view, the world is a battleground between the gods and the giants, whose power is more or less evenly matched. Mankind is in the middle, torn between the opposing claims of holiness, order, and goodness on the one hand, and profaneness, chaos, and wickedness on the other. This tension is ceaseless because it’s been a feature of the world itself since its very beginning. The strife will only be alleviated by Ragnarok, when the world will be destroyed altogether, and nothing will remain but the stillness and darkness of a new Ginnungagap. References: [1] Kure, Henning. 2003. In the Beginning Was the Scream: Conceptual Thought in the Old Norse Myth of Creation. In Scandinavia and Christian Europe in the Middle Ages: Papers of the 12th International Saga Conference. Edited by Rudolf Simek and Judith Meurer. p. 311-319. [2] Ibid. [3] Simek, Rudolf. 1993. Dictionary of Northern Mythology. Translated by Angela Hall. p. 47. [4] Ibid. p. 50. [5] Ibid. p. 35-36. [6] Ibid. p. 40. [7] The Poetic Edda. Völuspá. [8] The Poetic Edda. Vafþrúðnismál. [9] The Poetic Edda. Grímnismál. [10] Snorri Sturluson. The Prose Edda. Gylfaginning. [11] Quoted in: Kure, Henning. 2003. In the Beginning Was the Scream: Conceptual Thought in the Old Norse Myth of Creation. In Scandinavia and Christian Europe in the Middle Ages: Papers of the 12th International Saga Conference. Edited by Rudolf Simek and Judith Meurer. p. 311-319. [12] Turville-Petre, E.O.G. 1964. Myth and Religion of the North: The Religion of Ancient Scandinavia. p. 277-278. [13] Kure, Henning. 2003. In the Beginning Was the Scream: Conceptual Thought in the Old Norse Myth of Creation. In Scandinavia and Christian Europe in the Middle Ages: Papers of the 12th International Saga Conference. Edited by Rudolf Simek and Judith Meurer. p. 311-319. [14] Ibid. [15] Ibid. 1 RAGNAROK BY DANIEL MCCOY “Battle of the Doomed Gods” by Friedrich Wilhelm Heine (1882) Ragnarok is the cataclysmic destruction of the cosmos and everything in it – even the gods. When Norse mythology is considered as a chronological set of tales, the story of Ragnarok naturally comes at the very end. For the Vikings, the myth of Ragnarok was a prophecy of what was to come at some unspecified and unknown time in the future, but it had profound ramifications for how the Vikings understood the world in their own time. We’ll explore some of those ramifications below. The word “Ragnarok” comes from Old Norse Ragnarök, “Fate of the Gods.” In an apparent play on words, some pieces of Old Norse literaturealso refer to it as Ragnarøkkr, “Twilight of the Gods.” The event was also occasionally referred to as aldar rök, “fate of mankind,” and a host of other names.[1] Without further ado, here’s the tale itself: 2 The Fate of the Gods Ragnarok (Franz Stassen, 1920) Someday – whenever the Norns, those inscrutable spinners of fate, decree it – there shall come a Great Winter (Old Norse fimbulvetr, sometimes Anglicized as “Fimbulwinter”) unlike any other the world has yet seen. The biting winds will blow snows from all directions, and the warmth of the sun will fail, plunging the earth into unprecedented cold. This winter shall last for the length of three normal winters, with no summers in between. Mankind will become so desperate for food and other necessities of life that all laws and morals will fall away, leaving only the bare struggle for survival. It will be an age of swords and axes; brother will slay brother, father will slay son, and son will slay father. The wolves Skoll and Hati, who have hunted the sun and the moon through the skies since the beginning of time, will at last catch their prey. The stars, too, will disappear, leaving nothing but a black void in the heavens. Yggdrasil, the great tree that holds the cosmos together, will tremble, and all the trees and even the mountains will fall to the ground. The chain that has been holding back the monstrous wolf Fenrir will snap, and the beast will run free. Jormungand, the mighty serpent who dwells at the bottom of the ocean and encircles the land, will rise from the depths, spilling the seas over all the earth as he makes landfall. 3 Loki breaks free (Ernst H. Walther, 1897) These convulsions will shake the ship Naglfar (“Nail Ship”[2]) free from its moorings. This ship, which is made from the fingernails and toenails of dead men and women, will sail easily over the flooded earth. Its crew will be an army of giants, the forces of chaos and destruction. And its captain will be none other than Loki, the traitor to the gods, who will have broken free of the chains in which the gods have bound him. Fenrir, with fire blazing from his eyes and nostrils, will run across the earth, with his lower jaw on the ground and his upper jaw against the top of the sky, devouring everything in his path. Jormungand will spit his venom over all the world, poisoning land, water, and air alike. The dome of the sky will be split, and from the crack shall emerge the fire-giants from Muspelheim. Their leader shall be Surt, with a flaming sword brighter than the sun in his hand. As they march across Bifrost, the rainbow bridge to Asgard, the home of the gods, the bridge will break and fall behind them. An ominous horn blast will ring out; this will be Heimdall, the divine sentry, blowing the Gjallarhorn to announce the arrival of the moment the gods have feared. Odin will anxiously consult the head of Mimir, the wisest of all beings, for counsel. The gods will decide to go to battle, even though they know what the prophecies have foretold concerning the outcome of this clash. They will arm themselves and meet their enemies on a battlefield called Vigrid (Old Norse Vígríðr, “Plain Where Battle Surges”[3]). 4 “Odin and Fenrir, Freyr and Surt” by Emil Doepler (1905) Odin will fight Fenrir, and by his side will be the einherjar, the host of his chosen human warriors whom he has kept in Valhalla for just this moment. Odin and the champions of men will fight more valiantly than anyone has ever fought before. But it will not be enough. Fenrir will swallow Odin and his men. Then one of Odin’s sons, Vidar, burning with rage, will charge the beast to avenge his father. On one of his feet will be the shoe that has been crafted for this very purpose; it has been made from all the scraps of leather that human shoemakers have ever discarded, and with it Vidar will hold open the monster’s mouth. Then he will stab his sword through the wolf’s throat, killing him. “Thor and the Midgard Serpent” by Emil Doepler (1905) Another wolf, Garm, and the god Tyr will slay each other. Heimdall and Loki will do the same, putting a final end to the trickster’s treachery, but costing the gods one of their best in the process. The god Freyr and the giant Surt will also be the end of each other. Thor and Jormungand, those age-old foes, will both finally have their chance to kill the other. Thor will succeed in felling the great snake with the blows of his hammer. But the serpent will have covered him in so much venom that he will not be able to stand for much longer; he will take nine paces before falling dead himself and adding his blood to the already-saturated soil of Vigrid. Then the remains of the world will sink into the sea, and there will be nothing left but the void. Creation and all that has occurred since will be completely undone, as if it had never happened. Some say that that is the end of the tale – and of all tales, for that matter. But others hold that a new world, green and beautiful, will arise out of the waters. Vidar and a few other gods – Vali, Baldur, Hodr, and Thor’s sons Modi and Magni – will survive the downfall of the old world, and will live joyously in the new one. A man and a woman, Lif and Lifthrasir (Old 5 Norse Líf and Lífþrasir, “Life” and “Striving after Life”[4]), will have hidden themselves from the cataclysm in a place called the “Wood of Hoddmimir” (Hoddmímis holt), and will now come out and populate the lush land in which they will find themselves. A new sun, the daughter of the previous one, will rise in the sky. And all of this will be presided over by a new, almighty ruler.[5] The Meaning of Ragnarok for the Vikings As the above implies, two versions of the myth of Ragnarok seem to be present in the Norse sources. In one of them, Ragnarok is the final end of the cosmos, and no rebirth follows it. In the other, there is a rebirth. What are we to make of this conflict? In my book The Viking Spirit: An Introduction to Norse Mythology and Religion, I argue that the version in which no rebirth occurs is the older, more purely pagan view, and the rebirth story is an addition that developed only late in the Viking Age under Christian influence. Ragnarok had been reinterpreted to describe the religious transformation the Viking world was undergoing, in which the old gods were indeed dying, but were also being replaced with something else. A relatively short article such as this isn’t the place to present this argument and the evidence for it as I do in the book, so if you want to see my reasoning, read the book. Half a chapter is devoted to this topic. But here’s the gist: the rebirth addition comes only from three late sources, one of which was dependent on the other two, while all previous mentions of Ragnarok speak only of the destruction, and never of any kind of rebirth. What would such a belief have meant for the Norse? Imagine that you’re a Viking. You live in a world that you know will one day be obliterated. The very gods themselves will perish with it. Nothing of value will be spared – not even the memory of anything that ever had value. How does such a world look to you in the present moment, given that the seeds of that final destruction have already been sown, and the world is careening inexorably toward that final decisive moment? Would this not cast a dark hue of tragedy, senselessness, and futility over the world and everything that occurs within it? Indeed, it’s hard to escape the conclusion that this was how the Vikings saw the world on one level. Yet Ragnarok also carried another meaning for them, one which complemented yet altered this tragic view of life. In addition to being a prophecy about the future that revealed much about the underlying nature of the world along the way, the myth of Ragnarok also served as a paradigmatic model for human action. For the Vikings, the tale didn’t produce hopelessness as much as inspiration and invigoration. Just as the gods will one day die, so too will each individual human being. And just as the gods will go out and face their fate with dignity, honor, and courage, so too can humans. In this view, the inevitability of death and misfortune should not paralyze us, but should instead spur us to hold noble attitudes and do noble deeds – the kind worthy of being recounted by bards many generations after we ourselves are gone. ... Purchase answer to see full attachment