THE END AND THE BEGINNING, according to the Norses.

On the Day of Ragnarok, the powerful force of the cosmic energy (the fire giant Sturt) will set the Tree of Life (Yggdrasill) on fire (cosmic fire).
The axe-age, then the sword-age, the shields of everything will be gashed: there will be a Wind-age and a Wolf-age before the cosmic world is wrecked.
First of al, the middle world (Midgard), where the flaming bridge, the well of wisdom, the dwarfs, the elves, and the giants live, will be wrenched and racked by cosmic wars for three winters. Fathers will slaughter sons; brothers will be drenched in one another's blood. Mothers will desert their menfolk and seduce their own sons; brothers will bed with sisters. Then the cosmic winter of winters (Fimbulvert) will grip and throttle there. Three such cosmic winters will follow each other with no summers between them. Driving snow clouds will converge from the four corners of the cosmic world. There will be bitter frosts, biting winds, the shining sun will be helpless. So the end will begin.
Then a number of powerful cosmic entities, the children of the old giantess in Iron Wood will have their say: the Wolf Skoll will seize the sun between his jaws and swallow her. He will spatter the home of the gods (Asgard) with gore, and his brother Hati will catch the moon and mangle him. The stars will vanish from the sky. The earth will start to shudder then. Great trees (powers) will sway and topple, mountains (power different than the trees) will shake and rock, crushing the earth down. Fenrir, the serpent will run free.
The brothers Fenrir the Wolf, and Jormungand the Serpent, will move forward side by side. Fenrir's slavering mouth will gape wide open, so wide that his lower jaw scrapes against the ground and his upper jaw presses against the sky; it would gape still wider if there were more room. Flames will dance in Fenrir's eyes and leap from his nostrils. Meanwhile, Jormungand, with each breath will spew venom, and all the earth and the sky will be splashed and stained with his poison. The world will be in uproar.
The gods, meanwhile, will not iddle. The great horn will sound such a blast that it will be heard throughout the nine worlds : In the Fist Level, Asgard (home of the gods), Vanaheim (home of the Vanir), Alfheim (home of the light elves); in the middle level, Midgard (middle world/garden), Nidavellir (home of the dwarfs), Jotunheim (home of the giants), Svaltarheim (home of the dark elves); in the third level, Hel (realm of the dead), Niflheim (world of the dead). All the gods will wake and at once meet in council. Then the all father god (Odin) will mount his horse (Sleipnir) and gallop to the spring of wisdom and take advice from Mimir there.
The Tree of Life (Yggdrasill), the cosmic ash that always was and waves over all that is, that holds the nine worlds, itself will moan, its leaves will tremble, its limbs shiver and shake, only two humans will take refuge deep within it. Everything in heaven and in earth and hell will quiver. It will be a long struggle. The age-old enemies Loki and Heimdall will meet once more and each will be the cause of the other's death. Thor, son of earth, and gaping Jormungand have met before too; they are well matched. At Vigrid the god will kill the serpent but he will only be able to stagger back nine steps before he falls dead himself, poisoned by the venom Jormungand spews over him. In the end, the Wolf will seize all father between his jaws and swallow him. That will be the death of Odin.
At once his son (Vidar) will stride forward and press one foot on Fenrir's bottom jaw, and the shoe he will wear has been wore for a very long time in the making of everything. It consists of all the strips and bits of leather pared off the heels and toes of new shoes in a cosmic cycle since time began, and all the leftovers of those sacred shoes, thrown away as gifts for the god. The son of the god (Vidar) will take hold of Fenrir's other jaw and tear the Wolf, so avenging his father. Cosmic fire will fling in every direction. Asgard and Midgard and Jotunheim and Niflheim will become furnaces, places of ranging flame, swirling smoke, ashes, only cosmic ashes. But the earth will rise again out of the water, fair and green. There is where the new rulers will live at peace with themselves and each other. Then there will be those who have a taste for it. Good men will live in this new earth. They will have children, their children will bear children. There will be a new life. That was the end; and this is the beginning.