Ragnarok Rocks York

If you happened to be in the historic city of York today, you will have been treated to the unusual experience of the start of the countdown to the end of the world. A horn based on the type used by the Vikings, was blown to signal the start of a 100 day countdown to Ragnarok - the Viking apocalypse. According to Norse myth, Ragnarok began when the god Balder was killed by the trickster god, Loki. In time, the sun and moon will be devoured by wolves and our world will be covered in ice. The god Heimdall will blow a horn similar to the one used at York, and there will be war between the gods and giants. This will cause the seas to boil away and our world will be destroyed. All that will be left is darkness and void. Then the sun will rise again and the earth will regenerate. Two new humans Lif (a woman), and Lifthrasir (a man), will emerge and be joined by the children of the god Thor, the newly resurrected god Balder and Balder’s brother -  Hodur. These gods and humans will be different from the bellicose and lustful beings of the past, and will live in peace and harmony. If all this talk of wolves and war has you quaking, don’t worry, some authorities argue that the notion of Ragnarok was only added to Norse mythology as a result of the Vikings coming into contact with the Christian idea of Armageddon.