This excerpt from Snorri Sturluson's description ofRagnarok in the Prose Edda captures some of the high drama of the predicted final struggle between the forces of good and evil.
The straight-standing ash [tree] Yggdrasil quivers, the old tree groans, and the [evil] giant gets loose.... Mountains dash together, giant maids are frightened, heroes go the way to Hel, and heaven is rent in twain.... All men abandon their homesteads when the warder of Midgard in wrath slays the serpent. The sun grows dark, the earth sinks into the sea, the bright stars from heaven vanish; fire rages, heat blazes, and high flames play against heaven itself.
Snorri Sturluson, Prose Edda, trans. Rasmus B. Anderson, Nothvegr Foundation. Www. northvegr. org/ lore/prose2/016.php.
Blacksmiths to create a formidable iron chain and collar to bind Fenrir, but the monster quickly broke the chain. The blacksmiths forged other chains, but the beast merely laughed and shattered them all. Odin eventually acquired a magic chain fashioned by creatures called dark elves and with it was able to successfully restrain the giant wolf. However, Fenrir realized that time was on his side. If he waited patiently, he realized, the day of Ragnarok would eventually come and somehow he would find a way to get loose and unleash his vengeance on the gods and humans.
Thus, as the Norns had warned, no matter what Odin and the other gods did to try to stop the inevitable from happening, it would happen anyway. Yet even knowing this, Odin, and many Vikings in the real world, too, refused to give up.
They insisted on living as if the future would be bright rather than hopeless.
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