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.