Ragnarok

A short poem about the end of the world - Viking style

A great and feisty battle will be 

When Fenris free from chains of eternity

On the plains called Vigrid the Gods will fight

Aesir and Jotuns with all their might

First will Baldur to his death go

From mistletoe, as white as snow

Then come Fimbulwinter; 

Where brother dies by brother's hand

Three years the cold lasts on Midgard's land

Wolf and Demi-God, now free to bring about pain

Devours the sun to end the Gods' reign

Next of the signs is Yggdrasil's tremble

Through the nine worlds its branches' shakes will assemble

Naglfar, ship of the dead

With Loki at the helm, and so it is said

That the great horn of Heimdall shall ring loud with alarm

So the Gods of Asgard to war shall come with shield and with arm

Jotun the giants destroying the cosmos in delight

Surt, flaming swordsman leaves nothing but inferno in sight

The Aesir will fight fierce for to-morrow and glory

And so the Gods win in the end says the story

That the great Thor shall fall to Jormundagand

But as he lies dying, so shall the serpent rot in the sand

Taken by Mjolnir at the last stand

So shall also Freyr and Surt, and Loki and Heimdall, finish another

Then by Fenrir, Tyr and Odin will be killed

The wolf, at last is slain by Vidar and the prophecy fulfilled-

And so as the world began, so shall it also end

By Ginnungagap till the world be born again

Author's Note

I want reviewers who knows a bit about the mythology to know if the story adds up.
Otherwise, as always, please do comment, I like feedback so long as it's constructive.

Reviews

[RobbieT]

Wow I'm really impressed by this poem and its natural rhythm, but there were a few spots where it was broken. I think the second half of the sixth line needs another beat to keep it from sounding too repetitive. You could say "as white as snow" to add the extra beat. I also think you should take out "shall" from the ninth line and make "last" "lasts" instead. In the tenth line there is a small grammatical error. It should say "restraint" instead of "restrain". In either the sixteenth or seventeenth line I think you need to get rid of one "great". The long "a" sound in the word sounds repetitive and takes away from the beautiful rhythm and rhyme scheme you created. If you take it out of the seventeenth line you should add in "the" before "Gods". In the nineteenth line I think you should get rid of "he is" to keep the rhythm. In the twentieth line you should get rid of the second "for" for grammatical and rhythmic purposes. I think you should write the twenty-third line like this "But as he lay dying, so shall the serpent rot in the sand" to make it all flow a bit better. Likewise I think the twenty-fourth line would sound better as "Taken by Mojolnir at his last stand" It's easier to understand that way. The twenty-fifth line might flow better if you changed it to "So shall also Freyr and Surt, Loki and Heimdall finish another" The twenty sixth line is a little hard to understand. If you wrote it like "But by Fenrir, Tyr and Odin are to be killed" it will make more sense. In the twenty-seventh line there is a small typo where the word "wolf" should be. Also I think if you got rid of the word "is" the line would flow better with the rest of the poem. Lastly in the final line I think you should write it as "By Ginnungagap till the world be born again" It sounds less repetitive and more final in my opinion.

Like I said before I'm really impressed by this poem. You pretty much nailed the story right on the head and did the Eddas justice. All of my little comments were just nuances that native English speakers would notice. I really encourage you to take more stories from the Eddas and turn them into modern poetry!

[E.R. Jonas]

Thank you very much for the review. I'll try to make adjustments sometime this afternoon. I can definitely see what you mean and agree about the pointers :)

I am glad you liked it, I've been thinking about making a poetry about the story where Thor has to go drag in order to get his hammer back so maybe I should do that.

[RobbieT]

Please do! I'll definitely keep an eye out for it.

[E.R. Jonas]

Ok, I've made some adjustments now, I also changed the whole 2nd part of the 10th line because it didn't work with restraint. I also found a spelling mistake I had in the first line, so that should be fixed as well.

I didn't follow all of your suggestions (but I did follow most of them as I did agree), but please let me know what you think of the changes.

[RobbieT]

It's perfect!

[zainul]

I must appreciate your monumental efforts to create a rhymed piece from a mythical story.
I have a single word to glorify you.
Congratulations!!!