The Gylfaginning Prose Edda - The Ragnarok
Brothers shall strive | and slaughter each other;
Own sisters' children | shall sin together;
Ill days among men, | many a whoredom:
An axe-age, a sword-age, | shields shall be cloven;
A wind-age, a wolf-age, | ere the world goes headlong.
High blows Heimdallr, | the horn is aloft;
Odin communes | with Mimir's head;
Trembles Yggdrasill's | towering Ash;
The old tree wails | when the Ettin is loosed.
What of the Æsir? | What of the Elf-folk?
All Jötunheim echoes, | the Æsir are at council;
The dwarves are groaning | before their stone doors,
Wise in rock-walls; | wit ye yet, or what?
Hrymr sails from the east, | the sea floods onward;
The monstrous Beast | twists in mighty wrath;
The Snake beats the waves, | the Eagle is screaming;
The gold-neb tears corpses, | Naglfar is loosed.
From the east sails the keel; | come now Múspell's folk
Over the sea-waves, | and Loki steereth;
There are the warlocks | all with the Wolf,--
With them is the brother | of Býleistr faring.
Surtr fares from southward | with switch-eating flame;
On his sword shimmers | the sun of the war-gods;
The rocks are falling, | and fiends are reeling,
Heroes tread Hel-way, | heaven is cloven.
Then to the Goddess | a second grief cometh,
When Odin fares | to fight with the Wolf,
And Beli's slayer, | the bright god, with Surtr;
There must fall | Frigg's beloved.
Odin's son goeth | to strife with the Wolf,--
Vídarr, speeding | to meet the slaughter-beast;
The sword in his hand | to the heart he thrusteth
Of the fiend's offspring; avenged is his Father.
Now goeth Hlödyn's | glorious son
Not in flight from the Serpent, | of fear unheeding;
All the earth's offspring | must empty the homesteads,
When furiously smiteth | Midgard's defender.
The sun shall be darkened, | earth sinks in the sea,--
Glide from the heaven | the glittering stars;
Smoke-reek rages | and reddening fire:
The high heat licks | against heaven itself.
Vígrídr hight the field | where in fight shall meet
Surtr and the cherished gods;
An hundred leagues | it has on each side:
Unto them that field is fated."
I know a hall standing | far from the sun,
In Nástrand: the doors; | to northward are turned;
Venom-drops fill | down from the roof-holes;
That hall is bordered | with backs of serpents.
There are doomed to wade | the weltering streams
Men that are mansworn, | and they that murderers are.
In the gods shrines | shall dwell Vídarr and Váli,
When the Fire of Surtr is slackened;
Módi and Magni | shall have Mjöllnir
At the ceasing of Thor's strife.
Líf and Lífthrasir, | these shall lurk hidden
In the Holt of Hoddmímir;
The morning dews | their meat shall be;
Thence are gendered the generations.
The Elfin-beam | shall bear a daughter,
Ere Fenris drags her forth;
That maid shall go, | when the great gods die,
To ride her mother's road.