Ragnarök, the Twilight of the Gods

A dead seeress, raised by Odin, tells him the whole ending in order: the wolf, the serpent, the fire, the names of the dead. He listens to the end, and then arms. The eye traded for wisdom, the nine nights on the tree, Valhalla itself: everything the Allfather does is preparation for a battle he has been told he loses.

The gods bind their monsters instead of killing them. Fenrir the wolf is chained by Gleipnir, a ribbon woven of six impossible things, at the price of Týr’s sworn right hand. Loki, after the death of Baldr, killed by a mistletoe loophole and kept dead by one dry eye, is bound under a serpent’s venom. Everything bound in these stories gets loose.

Three winters come with no summer between them. The sun is swallowed; every fetter in nine worlds snaps; the ship of dead men’s nails sails with Loki at the helm. On the plain called Battle-Surge the matched deaths are executed in order: Fenrir swallows Odin, Thor kills the world-serpent and walks nine steps, fire goes over everything, and the earth sinks into the sea.

And then the part the doom-sayers forget: the earth rises green from the sea a second time. Unsown, the fields grow; Baldr comes back, forgiven murderer beside him; Thor’s sons carry the hammer into the new morning. And in the grass of the new world, the survivors find the golden game-pieces of the old one, the board set up again, with no prophecy hanging over it.