Ragnarök Isn’t a Myth — It’s a Mirror
What we can learn from the Norse myths as we reach the end of the line.
Why should we care about the Death of Baldr? What does this Norse myth of hubris, betrayal, death, and apocalypse have to do with us?
As it turns out: a lot.
I won't mince words here. The Death of Baldr is not just some quaint story from 1000 years ago. I share it today because it is a story about us.
Consider this. The Death of Baldr, as we know it, comes to us primarily through a single source: the Prose Edda, written by Snorri Sturluson, a 13th-century Icelandic Christian. Christianity had been the official religion of Iceland for almost 200 years by the time Snorri was born. He was writing of the living mythic tradition of his people, but of a tradition of his ancestors long ago. His retelling, then, is subject to his own biases and interpretations.
Many scholars suggest that the Death of Baldr was previously a story not unlike the story of Persephone's descent to the underworld or the story of the Shinto sun goddess Amaterasu hiding away from the world after the tricks and debauchery of her brother. Both these stories hold interesting parallels. And both of them were (or are) enacted ritually every year, honoring cycles of death and rebirth. The sun descends—the light leaves the world—and then the sun returns.
I will leave the debate about what the ancient Norse believed to the scholars. Rather, I will honor the oral origins of the myth. Where the story changes and evolves as it’s told every time. The changes Snorri made are reflective of his time. The changes I made are reflective of ours.
Our world is not like the ancient, pre-Christian Norse. Christianity has so pervaded our minds and culture that it influences everything. We live, like Snorri, in a post-Christian world.
Our worldview, our cosmology, is not primarily cyclical like that of the Shinto or the ancient Greeks. We live in linear time. The era of progress. An era where time marches ever forward. In a cyclical worldview, time is renewed continuously. A circle has no end or beginning. A line, on the other hand, has an end. In the Death of Baldr, Ragnarök is the end. And it is clear to many we are approaching ours.
It's only been in recent decades that the naive optimism of technological materialism has begun to give way. The promises of a pain-free life and ultimate liberation are beginning to show their wear. Sixty years ago, young people watched The Jetsons, imagining the year 2000 would be filled with flying cars. People would live high in the sky, satisfied and vibrant, unsullied by the dirt of the Earth. Nowadays, when we turn our imagination to the future, we are much more likely to imagine dystopian futures where humans are picking through the trash heaps rather than high above. Much like Snorri imagines, we are living in a time of mythic ending. It is as if the very nature of our unbridled optimism of the 20th century has course-corrected into a dismal, destructive end. As if our laughing in the face of death has inspired Loki’s schemes.
How could it be otherwise? The only constant in nature is change. Culture, however, seeks to sustain itself and grow. Thus, the healthiest cultures had processes and rituals to ceremonially enact their own renewal. Central to these processes was the Trickster. The god of trickery, transgression, and change. The Norse called him Loki, but he has many names: Hermes, Coyote, Raven, Eshu, Anansi, Susano'o, and more.
Yet we do not hold space for the Trickster—he who defies our control. Indeed, we laugh like the gods in their game, touting our apparent mastery over life and death.
Indeed, we are apt to characterize the Trickster as a demonic or devilish figure. Snorri himself does this throughout his writings. In the Poetic Edda (written perhaps 200 years before Snorri's time), Loki is depicted as mischievous and morally ambiguous. Yet Snorri depicts Loki in more nefarious ways. No longer ambiguous, Snorri depicts Loki as malevolent, the primary source of trouble for the Aesir gods. Loki is destined to be bound until the end times. He is destined to lead the army of chaos against our heroes, the gods. These resonate strongly with descriptions of Satan and the anti-Christ, which Snorri would most certainly have known.
None of this is to condemn Snorri by any means. Again, he simply told the myth through the lens of his own time. And this is the story he told: a story of controlling gods seeking to defy death and prophecy, who brutally punish the Trickster for stopping them.
Do we not, then, have something to learn?
Here is the stark reality that our culture would have us deny: people die. Cultures die. Civilizations rise and fall. The nature of life and the universe is change. No matter how much one tries to deny this, change will always come.
Our culture has sustained itself by binding the Trickster—asserting all manner of control to maintain our superior conception of the world. Order of any kind is defined by what it keeps out. And whenever anything is kept out, you'd better believe the Trickster is scheming to cross those lines again.
Dominant Western culture sought to keep death out. It exported death to third-world countries, where most people don't see it. It ships shrink-wrapped chicken thighs to supermarkets, where we can ignore that this was a being who died. It devises medicines and interventions endlessly to extend life at all costs.
Most of all, though, it conceives of a future where the culture itself needn't change. Where the prevailing assumptions and narratives that have gotten us this far can one day carry us to the stars. Even now, politicians rail against initiatives that cause us to confront our own dirt.
Though they will not win. As the Death of Baldr tells us, when the Trickster is bound and renewal-change is halted, we eventually reach the end of the line.
Is this not the end of the line now?
If you listen closely, right now you may hear Loki howling.
This is why I share this story. This is why it matters at this time. It reminds us of where we are. And what is coming now.
Yet there is no need for despair, for even Snorri reminds us of hope.
For even in this story, the cyclical nature of time is revealed once again. After the tumult of Ragnarök, the new world is born.
Höðr, Baldr, and Váli stand side-by-side. Baldr and Höðr are alive. This time, no one sheds blood.
Two humans, Líf and Lífþrasir, survive into this new age.
From the peace among these survivors, the world begins anew.
It’s normal to feel afraid right now, as the old order crumbles around us. Yet, we will not be served by empty niceties that “everything will be okay.”
Everything will be okay. After everything is lost. Though we must not resist as the Trickster emerges once again.
We will not win this battle. To fight it is foolish.
For those of us who have dreamed of a better, brighter world:
We must let the ending come; what we seek is on the other side…
