The story of of the Norse gods is one that most people are familiar with, at least in passing. Odin and most of the Norse pantheon die in an apocalyptic battle for the ages. While most of what people know about that myth is accurate, there are a few important details that were lost to history on account of the fact that nobody survived to tell the tale. Today we will delve into a story that will delve into a story that you may think that you already know by heart.
Long ago before the beginning of time as we know it, all of the Norse gods died during the events of Ragnarok. Even though some did survive the battle, the world tree that they lived on burned and they ended up dying anyway. That was the primordial epoch before the celestial and mundane time period that we are in today.
The world tree was the only place to live aside from the realms of the frost and fire giants back then. The realms of the jotuns and the muspells were somewhere else entirely. Loki was king of the frost giants to begin with and never made friends with the Norse. Everyone seems to think that Thor was part of the story back then, but that is a common misconception.
During that era, the only hammer-wielding son of Odin was Magni. He had the potential to become Thor god of thunder but never lived up to it. Thus he was never able to lift Mjolnir, which was on an anvil in the throne room of Asgard. He literally tried every day for countless eons while surrounded by Norse priests, but he never was never worthy. It doesn’t help that all he ever did was drink and eat like a pig.
When Ragnarok began, the Norse gods just couldn’t prove equal to the task. From that day henceforth Surtr was regarded as the doom of Asgard, on account of the fact that he burned it to the ground. Magni confronted the word serpent and was eaten, and Odin got killed by Fenrir like the myth says.
As was previously stated, some did survive the burning of Asgard but not the burning of the world tree. They all ended up in helheim were they suffered in icy torment for countless eons. That would be the end of the story, but this is actually where it gets interesting.
Mars the roman god of war became worthy of Mjolnir. At some point thereafter, he manifested the name Thor god of thunder. Because of that, He was able to restore Asgard and the rest of the world tree. That was the event that reset the conflict of Ragnarok.
As it turns out, Ragnarok was a series of battles with the fate of the world hanging in the balance. In fact, the term Ragnarok means “world’s end”. The ten battles lived up to the hype in terms of the scale of the carnage and destruction that was necessary for either side to win. What’s more, the Norse god of thunder could not raise an army because everyone was too scared.
It was the most challenging conflict that the young god of thunder had ever engaged in. Doing so alone earned him the power of the juggernaut, the reason for the term. After all was said and done, it turns out that overcoming a world-ending conflict and becoming a true god in the process is what gets deities invited to the war of the gods.
Under normal circumstances, all of the gods would have been prompted to enter the same arena and fight until only one god was left standing. However, when the judges realized that Thor god of thunder was the only perfect god, they split the gods into ten different arenas and prompted the young Norse god to fight in all ten.
After slaughtering countless gods in all ten arenas, the judges informed the only god of thunder that each god had to become worthy of a legendary weapon the way that Thor had to become worthy of Mjolnir. That’s when the mightiest of all the gods used his godly authority to forge all of the aforementioned weapons into his own.
All of the weapon types were represented and countless of them were war-hammers, but all of them ended up being magically forged into Mjolnir. Whereas before, Mjolnir meant “war-hammer of Thor”. After being reforged, its meaning changed to “thunder-hammer”. That is significant because the Norse god of thunder actually invented elemental thunder. To the gods, the term thunder had always meant loud, strong impact.
What makes all of those weapons so special that one must be worthy of them is that they are weapons that did not have to be forged because they have always existed. That is why they are termed eternity weapons. Because they are literally the power of eternity made manifest. That is what makes Mjolnir special. That is why the only god of thunder’s godly stance is to raise his thunder-hammer high in victory before and after the battle.
