If you survived the Rapture that Harold Camping told you about, as well as the Mayan Apocalypse, it’s time to cower for real this time: This Saturday is our day of reckoning when the world will be entirely submerged in water, all Noah-like, after an epic battle between Norse gods Thor, Loki, Odin, Freyr, and Hermóðr.

It’s one thing for me to sound a smidge incredulous, but I submit it’s pretty odd that Time magazine does, too. Time strikes an amused, dismissive tone about the Norse superstitions, which is remarkable for a magazine that loves boosting its fortune with Jesus covers. I suppose some myths are more equal than others.

Anyway:

In Norse mythology, Ragnarok goes down after the god Loki’s wolf grandson Skoll eats the sun, a very unchill thing to do. His brother eats the moon. This somehow unleashes their wolf-dad, Fenrir, a noted bloodthirsty curmudgeon. The Midgard snake Jormungand will surface from the depths of the sea. It gets worse from there. All the gods, like Odin, Thor, and some others that do not currently have days of the week named after them, show up to fight each other. It’s kind of like the Hunger Games but with pissed-off ancient deities. The earth will sink, the world will burn, and things will get maximum gnarly, death-wise.

Some believers in the Ragnarök, the Viking Twilight of the Gods, think the event, predicted 800 years ago in the Edda, will take place this coming weekend, says the Independent:

The Earth will fall into the sea, and life as we know it will cease to be. It’s not all bad news though, as the world will re-emerge anew and fertile, and two human survivors will be in charge of repopulating the Earth.

And no, puny earthling, you won’t be one of them.



