Ragnarok and it's connection to a cataclysmic event (2 replies)

Good afternoon (from not so sunny England) to everyone!

My name is Michael, and it's my first time posting on this forum. Before I proceed, please accept my apologies for any spelling / grammar errors, English is not my native language.

I am a believer in Mr Hancock's theory of a great cataclysmic event that might have wiped out a previous civilisation, like many others I have been introduced to him by his appearances on the JRE podcast.

I was watching Vikings on amazon prime the other day, and in one of the episodes the priest asks about Ragnarok - the apocalyptic event that marks the end of the Gods and the Norse civilisation. I was aware of this event in the Norse mythology, but I made a connection and I would like to share it with this board, in hopes maybe someone like Mr Hancock can look further into it.

The tale of Ragnarok is long and filled with information, but if we go by this website's simplified turn of events, [norse-mythology.org] , we can follow along my hypothesis. Where many see how this story is tied to socio / religious events (the end of the world as we know it), I see how this story could be a tale of an event that happened 12k years ago.

We know from the earliest historic finds that Scandinavia was colonised aprox 10k years ago. We also know the Norse mythology is in fact a Germanic religion, so from these 2 simple facts we can safely say it is possible the tale of Ragnarok could have been passed down through generations from 10k years ago.

To understand why the Ragnarok could be a tale of an cosmic impact and extinction event, we can easily follow the events in the tale ( I will be using information from the above mentioned website for ease of following):

The Ragnarok has a chain of events that follow a certain order, but the order of the events could be re-arranged to a minimum to make for how this would have unfolded from what we understand today through science of cosmic impacts. For the survivors of this event (and word of mouth inconsistencies) the order could have been altered. So let's start:

- Ragnarok starts with a long winter, 3 years without summer, in which people starved and fought each other - This on itself could be just a coincidence, or this even could have happened during or after the cataclysmic event. It could be that for some of the survivors this is all they've witnessed, and combined this with the mainstream story. Regardless, it would make sense as we are still talking about the ending of the last ice age, weather wasn't particularly kind.

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The wolves Skoll and Hati, who have hunted the sun and the moon through the skies since the beginning of time , will at last catch their prey. The stars, too, will disappear, leaving nothing but a black void in the heavens

this would be consistent with an event that would propel matter into the sky, with clouds encasing the planet into a long night where light wouldn't pass through.


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Yggdrasil, the great tree that holds the cosmos together, will tremble, and all the trees and even the mountains will fall to the ground. The chain that has been holding back the monstrous wolf Fenrir will snap, and the beast will run free. Jormungand, the mighty serpent who dwells at the bottom of the ocean and encircles the land, will rise from the depths, spilling the seas over all the earth as he makes landfall

- a description of earthquakes, and the powerful blast of a cosmic impact flattening trees and everything in between. Jormungand could very well be the comet itself, hitting the ocean, or the after effects of an impact creating tsunamis.

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Fenrir, with fire blazing from his eyes and nostrils, will run across the earth, with his lower jaw on the ground and his upper jaw against the top of the sky, devouring everything in his path. Jormungand will spit his venom over all the world, poisoning land, water, and air alike

- It's this that actually made me realise this could have been a tale of a cataclysmic event, Fenrir would very well be the depiction of the comet's impact blast scorching the ground as it moves away from the impact. It's not hard to see how these people later on would explain this even through the use of what they know, a wolf, a god, a giant, etc.

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The dome of the sky will be split, and from the crack shall emerge the fire-giants from Muspelheim. Their leader shall be Surt, with a flaming sword brighter than the sun in his hand. As they march across Bifrost, the rainbow bridge to Asgard, the home of the gods, the bridge will break and fall behind them. An ominous horn blast will ring out; this will be Heimdall, the divine sentry, blowing the Gjallarhorn to announce the arrival of the moment the gods have feared

. - during an cosmic impact of this scale, matter from the planet could be expelled back into the atmosphere and call down again in a rain of fire. It could also very well be smaller parts of the main commet falling down these people are seeing and now describing as fire giants. The horn blast could either be something added for the purpose of storytelling, or it could very well be the sounds of such an event, we know from the Krakatoa Eruption the sound circled the earth 4x times, one could only imagine the sounds during a cosmic impact and how this would haunt the survivors.

On the website then follows the battle between the Norse gods and the giants / Fenrir etc. This is obviously storytelling at it's finest but it could very well be the aftermath of the event, we know during Vulcanic eruptions there is thunder in the clouds, we could presume something of the sorts would be the case with Ragnarok where Jormungand could be an mushroom cloud / volcanic eruption etc. Speculative but easily to make sense from what we know today about these events.

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Then the remains of the world will sink into the sea, and there will be nothing left but the void. Creation and all that has occurred since will be completely undone, as if it had never happened

. - Consistent with the tale of the Atlantis, and others alike that Mr Hancock extensively covered.


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Some say that that is the end of the tale – and of all tales, for that matter. But others hold that a new world, green and beautiful, will arise out of the waters. Vidar and a few other gods – Vali, Baldur, Hodr, and Thor’s sons Modi and Magni – will survive the downfall of the old world, and will live joyously in the new one. A man and a woman, Lif and Lifthrasir (Old Norse Líf and Lífþrasir, “Life” and “Striving after Life”[4]), will have hidden themselves from the cataclysm in a place called the “Wood of Hoddmimir” (Hoddmímis holt), and will now come out and populate the lush land in which they will find themselves. A new sun, the daughter of the previous one, will rise in the sky. And all of this will be presided over by a new, almighty ruler.

again this is consistent with the flood stories all over the world and with Graham's hypothesis of an extinction event that would have wiped out the old world.

I might be wrong in my understanding but I've wanted to bring this up for discussion as I haven't found anywhere about this idea. And what a better place to talk about this than Mr Graham's own blog.

In the Norse mythology the Ragnarok has never happened, but is set in motion. This would make sense, as the whole Viking culture was based around dying a death in battle to get to Valhalla and join Odin in his fight against the giants / Fenrir and the like, during Ragnarok. It would make sense for this ancient story to evolve through the ages into a story that would be a key part of a civilisation. People have found the meaning in this story and used it to carve a religion out of it.

Thank you very much for taking your time to look over my wall of text. I am looking forward to your thoughts and pro/con arguments as to why this would or wouldn't be the case, I am just a guy with an idea and a thirst for knowledge.

Michael Kent.