Ragnarök

mercy on another.
This is from an old Norse epic poem, much like Gilgamesh, which describes the end of the world for the gods of Asgard. Ragnarök, or twilight of the gods, is what the Norse call the end of the world, where the world is hit with subsequent natural disasters, and battles amongst the gods, and ends with the world being drowned in water to be reborn new and fertile to be repopulated by two remaining humans and to have the surviving gods be living on in peace. Many gods die during Ragnarök, including Baldr (who's death leads to Ragnarök, killed by his brother Höðr who shoots him with a "mistletoe missle"), Thor (who dies fighting the midgard serpant known as Jörmungandr), Odin (who is eaten by the great wolf Fenrir), Freyr (loses in a battle with Sutr), Höðr (was killed for revenge for killing Baldr by Váli ).

After the chaos of Ragnarök and the great flood waters recede Baldr and Höðr return from Hel, and this marks the beginning of a new fertile age for the earth.

The flood myth, and how the world will become repopulated, are about the only things that this view of the end of the world has in common with any other religion's beliefs of the end of the world, or the end of the gods. The fact that gods can die isn't new to anyone who's studied mythology, but usually when that happens, an entire pantheon is whipped out to be replaced by a completely new and younger generation of gods. There isn't a belief system that I know of that has just some of their gods die and then has the rest of them continue on with another world age essentially. When a god does die, or a near god dies, in almost every other religion the deity that died was a character that was not a key figure in any other myths( Jesus is a clear exception to this rule).



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ragnar%C3%B6khttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baldrhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%B6%C3%B0r