Original subtitles

[MUSIC PLAYING]

NARRATOR: Thor, Norse god of thunder.

A fearless warrior who protects his people

from monstrous giants.

He was the idol of Vikings and barbarians in the darkest age

ever known to man.

But few know the reality behind his myth.

He battled the ancient world's most colossal sea monster

and he was the last hope for Europe's pagans

as they defied the armies of Christendom.

Fact and fiction collide in the myth of the mighty Thor.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Two arch enemies battle to the death.

Thor, the Thunder God, against a staggering beast.

A giant snake who strikes with lethal force.

It is man versus monster.

Thor unleashes his deadliest weapon,

lightning from his magic hammer as thunder rocks Heaven

and Earth.

The myth of Thor is filled with these epic showdowns.

Heroic battles against creatures who threaten mankind.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Thor's the champion of the gods.

He's the great fighter who can be brought out when something

is really bad.

You don't go to Thor for wisdom.

You go to Thor because he's going to protect you

against the evil monsters.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

NARRATOR: Tales of Thor's adventures

provided escape from one of the bleakest periods

in human history, the Dark Ages of the first Millennium AD.

It was a time when the Norse world, stretching

from the British Isles to the Baltic Sea, was in turmoil.

MICHAEL DROUT: It's an agricultural society where

people were farming and surviving kind

of at the very edge of how it was possible to survive,

because it was cold.

It was the northern part of Europe.

It wasn't around the Mediterranean

where it was much easier to grow things.

And it tended to be, from everything we can tell,

quite violent.

[GRUNTS AND SCREAMS]

[MUSIC PLAYING]

NARRATOR: War, famine, and death were daily facts of life

on the desolate northern fringes of Europe.

But the myth of Thor brought a sense of order to the chaos.

[LIGHTNING CRASHING, THUNDER RUMBLING]

It was a religion of the countryside.

Paganism actually is a Latin word that describes that what

the country people believe in.

And paganism is not really well-organized either.

It's not like the Greek pantheon in the sense

that it's very well organized and everybody knows whose

responsibilities and who's more important than whom.

It's very-- it's very different.

The view of human life in that mythology

was a fairly dark, a fairly stern one.

Human beings didn't look forward to the kind of salvation

and heaven at the end of time that's promised

in the Christian stories.

They had a kind of a darker, a more sorrowful view of life.

People have to show great courage and hardness

in the face of enormous obstacles.

NARRATOR: For inspiration, the people looked to Thor.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Thor was the quintessential hero.

He was strong.

Unlike some of the other gods, he was not deceptive.

He was not treacherous, but he was steadfast.

And as this heroic figure, I think people could identify

with him best.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

NARRATOR: In the myth, two of Thor's weapons

helped him conquer evil forces, a belt that doubles

his strength, and a hammer that shoots

lethal bolts of lightning.

No matter how far Thor throws his trusty hammer,

it will return to him like a boomerang.

And each time thunder roars, it means Thor's hammer has struck

a giant.

Thor is the master of lightning.

And this is not uncommon in other mythologies.

The obvious parallel here is Zeus in classical mythology,

who is the thunder god.

The thunder and lightning god is the protector god.

He's the strongest fighter.

So he has that capability that Zeus has,

the thunderbolt, the hammer for Thor

that can destroy the bad guys.

[THUNDER CRASHING]

NARRATOR: Thor's myth begins with his birth

to two all-powerful parents.

DAVID GEORGE: His father is Odin, the god of the heavens

and his mother is Jord, which is Earth.

And so in a sense, he is of the sky

and of the Earth, which makes him the perfect god for Middle

Earth, for Midgard where humans are.

NARRATOR: In Norse mythology, the world

is made up of three levels, all represented in a form quite

familiar to the ancient Norse, a tree.

They used to make housing that roughly resemble

American tepees.

And the entire view of the cosmos by the old Norse

was really based on that construction of housing.

You had a center pole that would hold up the walls.

They would have been the skeletal structure

of the house.

They would have been the skeletal structure

of the cosmos, so the small representing the large.

That's one of the reasons why trees become so very important.

NARRATOR: In the mythical tree's highest branches

is Asgard, the dwelling place of the gods.

At the opposite end beneath the roots

is a cool, dark realm known as Hel.

This is the land of the dead, and it's from this tradition

that our word "hell" originates.

The middle of the tree is Midgard, the Earth,

a world inhabited by humans.

This is Thor's domain.

As the warrior god, it is his duty

to destroy mankind's enemies in Midgard, the evil giants.

MICHAEL DROUT: The giants represent chaos.

They represent destruction.

If an avalanche killed you, if an earthquake got

you or a flood or something else,

it was the work of a giant.

So they represent all the things that could go wrong

with a civilization that was really kind of on the edge

of survival because of the climate,

because of how dangerous it was.

SCOTT HELLOR: One could imagine living, for example,

in a valley in Norway and seeing as winter progressed the frost

coming down from the valley, sort of the frost giants,

if you will.

And then spring comes, and one can see that

as being Thor battling back the frost giants back

up the mountain, and we will be able to have order restored.

NARRATOR: Today, echoes of Thor's mythical battles

with the giants can still be heard

in the forests and frigid plains that flank the North Sea.

Throughout Scandinavia, mysterious stone memorials

dot the landscape dating back to the pagan era.

They were erected between the 4th and 12th centuries AD

to mark territory, record important events,

and serve as tombstones for kings and warriors.

They are called rune stones, and they are the only clues

left behind by a society that didn't write down its stories.

On the stones are runic inscriptions

much like our Latin alphabet.

They sort of describe a piece of mythology

or a piece of a story that we sometimes are lucky enough

to have in written form.

NARRATOR: There is one figure who features prominently

in many of these inscriptions, the thunder god himself, Thor.

MICHAEL DROUT: There are quite a number of cases in runestone

where Thor's name is carved in the ruins with something like,

may Thor bless these ruins.

They wanted his power to somehow come through and protect them.

NARRATOR: In Norse myth, each got

battles his own personal enemy from among the evil giants.

The runestone reveal the identity of Thor's nemesis,

a giant who takes the form of a snake, the Midgard serpent.

MICHAEL DROUT: This is a snake that gets larger and larger,

and it's foretold that it's gonna

help bring about the doom of the gods

and the end of the universe.

Snake fear is actually hardwired into us.

It's cross-cultural.

And the old Norse picked up on that.

Snakes are bad and they're scary,

and that's sort of just the background

that you can then build good mythology out of.

NARRATOR: According to the legend,

the Midgard serpent grows so huge.

It can stretch around the Earth and envelop the world in chaos.

SCOTT HELLOR: It was the Midgard serpent that was circled

entirely around Middle Earth as a symbol of the edge

of the world, but also a symbol of the danger of going

past that edge.

NARRATOR: This is the ultimate adversary,

one Thor is determined to vanquish.

But victory will not come easy, even for a god.

This ongoing contest between Thor and the Midgard serpent

really represents the contest between the-- the force that is

protecting order, protecting the world of the gods and the world

of men against this ever-present threat of outside chaos that

always is there to threaten to destroy us.

NARRATOR: Order versus chaos.

It is a classic theme that resonated in the harsh Norse

world.

In the myth of Thor, it is often conveyed with a sense of humor.

In one part of the story, Thor wants

to get close to the Midgard serpent without being detected,

so he transforms himself into a young boy

and asks an ogre named Hymir to take him fishing at sea.

And they go out deep and deep, deeper and deeper, and further

and further out, and further and further out,

and finally, Hymir says, well, I think this is far enough,

and Thor says, no, no, we can go further out yet.

NARRATOR: Off the coast, Thor reveals his true identity

and lures the serpent to the surface with a head of an ox.

And he throws the entire ox head with a giant hook in it

over the side.

Well, the Midgard serpent bites on it and Thor hauls it up.

And so this gigantic Midgard serpent

is now sticking its head out of the water.

And Thor is excited about this.

He's thrilled.

He's reaching for his hammer, like, now, I finally got you.

But Hymir, the giant who's in the boat, is terrified.

NARRATOR: As Thor raises his hammer to strike,

the ogre cuts the fishing line, and the serpent dives back

into the sea.

Thor is enraged.

He has lost a rare chance to kill his arch enemy.

So Thor keeps having these encounters with the Midgard

Sometimes he's disguised, sometimes someone interferes,

serpent.

but in each case, the serpent gets away,

and that's probably because the serpent is being saved

in some way or another for the final battle between Thor

and the Midgard serpent.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

NARRATOR: This is not the only myth

that features a clash between a thunder

god and a giant serpent.

It is a theme found in every corner of the ancient world.

In the Hindu Holy book of Vedas, there

was a fight between the storm god, Indra,

and a monstrous snake.

And in Greek mythology, the serpentine beast

named Typhon battled Zeus, the god of lightning.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

These myths were created thousands of miles apart

and thousands of years apart, but they all

tell essentially the same story, a god of thunder and lightning

out to destroy a serpent who threatens the world.

But how could so many different societies

have shared the same myth?

It is likely they emerged from common experience.

Could the serpent in these stories

be based on a real sea monster?

And if so, does that creature still prowl

the depths of our oceans today.

Surprising evidence suggests it just might.

The Midgard serpent, arch enemy of all-mighty Thor,

a snake so colossal that can wrap itself around the planet.

In the myth, it represents chaos and evil in the world.

But what could have inspired such a terrifying creature?

Sightings of giant sea serpents have

been reported for centuries.

In the old Norse sagas, which are thought

to be based on real history, there

are even tales of ships being capsized by the beasts.

JOHN RENNIE: They often describe a gigantic creature

with long tentacles that could reach out and snatch down ships

and drag them to the bottom.

This was often referred to as the Kraken.

NARRATOR: The Kraken was said to have a long, slithery body that

moved at lightning speed, just like the Midgard serpent.

But tales of monstrous sea snakes

aren't limited to Northern Europe.

They can also be found in ancient Greece's most famous

adventure story, "The Odyssey."

It describes a massive serpent with a taste

for human flesh, the Scylla.

Scylla is this terrifying sea monster with many heads

and many arms who you know for a fact will grab up

six of your men and eat them.

NARRATOR: Scylla, Kraken, the Midgard serpent,

are these mythical sea monsters coincidence

or could they be based on something real?

A chance discovery in the 19th century

teased that possibility.

Fishermen in the North Atlantic encountered

a massive unknown sea creature and succeeded in capturing it.

The longest tentacle measured 35 feet.

It was a giant squid.

JOHN RENNIE: The amazing thing is that nobody had actually

been able to prove the existence of a giant squid

up until the 1870s when finally, after countless reports

of these things by sailors who were never really believed,

finally, dozens of them washed into the shore

in Newfoundland, proving that there really

were these amazing creatures.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

NARRATOR: 1,000 years earlier, tales of the sea monsters

terrified Scandinavia's most rugged seafarer's,

roving bands of marauders who built an empire by dominating

the waves, the Vikings.

THOMAS FINAN: The Vikings, the word

Viking itself means to plunder, to raid.

And so the name that was applied to these people

refers to the actual act of what they were doing.

NARRATOR: When the fear of giant sea creatures

threatened their voyages, the Vikings looked to one god,

Thor.

THOMAS FINAN: We would have to imagine the Norsemen getting

into their ships for plunder in the North Sea

and praying to Thor for protection

to help guide them to where they were going.

So Thor took on certain kind of significance that elevated him

above the other gods in the eyes of the warriors.

NARRATOR: Viking raiders performed a special ritual

in Thor's honor to guarantee their safety on the high seas.

The ritual involved dismantling a temple dedicated

to Thor and taking the pillars of the temple

onto the boats with them and dropping them over the side

into the ocean in order to show that Thor was dominating

the ocean, that they, as Thor's servants,

were going to be able to have safe passage.

NARRATOR: The pillars cast into the sea

were usually cut from oak trees.

Oak had a special connection to the thunder god.

It was the wood most often struck by lightning.

In fact, the central place to worship for

was not a temple or a church, it was a tree known as Thor's Oak,

and it was the Mecca of the ancient Norse world.

HELGA LUTHERS: We are told that this oak signifies Thor.

They would call upon that oak maybe even as

if it were Thor himself.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

NARRATOR: For generations, Thor's Oak

was the scene of bloody pagan sacrifices.

His followers frequently left offerings of flesh at its base.

Oftentimes, the sacrifice was in connection

with ensuring that harvest and agriculture and things

of this nature would be good for the following year.

During particularly bad times, it

was claimed that nine of every animal would be sacrificed.

And sometimes, in really bad years,

than you would even sacrifice a human being.

We have enough evidence that there were sacrifices

or executions associated with paganism at pagan sites,

and it's no stretch of the imagination

to think that they would have taken place at Thor's Oak also.

[MUSIC PLAYING, THUNDER CRASHING]

NARRATOR: According to legend, Thor's Oak

stood here in the town of Fritzlar, Germany until 723 AD.

That was the year everything changed.

When the forces of another religion arrived from the south

determined to convert all nonbelievers.

They set their sights on the symbolic center of the pagan

world, Thor's Oak.

SCOTT LEONARD: During the conversion of the Norse,

Saint Boniface came.

He gathered people together and says,

if Thor exists, if he's so powerful,

then surely, he'll strike me down

if I cut down his great tree.

The Christian account says that a mighty wind then

came and knocked the tree down, and when people saw this,

they perceived it as a miracle and they converted on the spot.

NARRATOR: The fall of Thor's Oak was a symbolic turning point

in Northern Europe.

To the pagan faithful, it was as if Thor himself was falling.

But it would take far more than this to make them surrender.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

The pagans had their own symbol to counter the Christian cross,

Thor's magical hammer.

In the myth, Thor uses it to strike down those who challenge

his authority.

But what if the thunder god were to lose his most

treasured weapon?

The consequences for both Thor and mankind

would be devastating.

In the myth, this is precisely what happen.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

For centuries, Thor's hammer was a symbol of power and pride

in the pagan world.

In the myth, it shoots lightning and helps

Thor vanquish giant monsters.

The hammer is so important because it separates humans

from everything else and it gives power

that you have from tools, power that you couldn't have with

only your bare hands no matter how strong they were,

and that's really important about Thor.

As strong as he is, he still needs his hammer.

NARRATOR: In one pivotal story, the thunder god

loses his prized weapon.

Without it, he is powerless to take on the giants that

threaten the Earth, and the fate of humankind

hangs in the balance.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

In the palace of Valhalla, sanctuary of the Norse gods,

a ghastly ogre king quietly invades Thor's bedchamber

and steals his hammer.

The ogre knows that without it, Thor is helpless,

and he plans to use it as blackmail.

When his hammer gets stolen that's

a stripping away of that human level of culture and technology

that separates you out from the animals.

SCOTT HELLOR: So Thor wakes up one morning, gropes around,

discovers that he is missing his hammer.

So who does he go to first?

Strangely enough, he goes to Loki.

NARRATOR: Loki is Thor's servant, but he is also a god.

He is crafty, conniving, and says he knows exactly who stole

the hammer.

He sets out for the land of the ogres to get it back.

There, Loki meets with the ogre king, Thrim, and the king names

his price.

TROY STORFJELL: And Thrim the giant

says, I have taken Thor's hammer and I've hidden it,

and no one will find it unless they give me Freyja as a bride.

Freyja, of course, is this beautiful, sensuous goddess

of love, fertility, and sex, and the giants, the dwarves,

everybody wants her.

NARRATOR: Freyja is also Thor's sister.

When she hears what the ogre wants,

she refuses to surrender.

But something must be done to get Thor's hammer back.

Well, his hammer is one of his identifying features.

His hammer is what he uses in order to kill the giants.

Without his hammer, the gods are in trouble,

the people are in trouble.

Everyone's in trouble without Thor's hammer.

NARRATOR: The gods called a special meeting

to discuss the crisis.

They agree on a risky strategy, to dress Thor up as his sister

and send him as the bride instead.

We'll put the bridal gown on him, put the veil over him,

and we'll send him down disguised as Freyja,

and then, perhaps, he can get the hammer and come back.

Thor is very upset at this.

Thor is the super macho uber masculine god

and was not about to, you know, go in drag.

NARRATOR: But Thor has no other choice.

He gives in and puts on Freyja's bridal outfit.

Only his red eyes are visible beneath the veil.

Well, now, this is very comical, isn't it?

Here, we have the big macho god who's gonna

now dress in women's clothes.

What exactly is Thor's hammer?

It is the symbol of his masculinity, and in a sense,

it's also a phallic symbol.

And of course, Thor's now lost the symbol of his masculinity

and so now, he has to become the opposite.

He has to become a woman because he's

no longer able to be a man.

NARRATOR: With Loki at his side, Thor

heads for the Land of the Giants.

The thunder god is not the most radiant bride,

but to get back his precious hammer,

he must swallow his pride.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Thrim sees them coming and says, ah, Freyja.

The only thing lacking in my world is Freyja,

and here she comes.

So the first thing they do is have a party and Thor

eats all the food.

And then, of course, she drinks all of the beer.

NARRATOR: Thor's binge immediately raises suspicions.

How can a blushing bride be such a drinker?

MICHAEL DROUT: And Loki's, oh, no, don't worry about it.

The bride just traveled for eight days and nights

she's really, really thirsty.

NARRATOR: But when Thrim takes a closer look at his bride to be,

he notices that her eyes are red and fiery.

Thrim jumps back and says, what's

going on with Freya's eyes?

And Loki, again, quick with the answer,

says, oh, well, she hasn't slept in a week either.

She was so excited to get here.

She so much wanted to get here.

Oh, OK, says Thrim.

NARRATOR: Finally, the king is convinced and hands

the magic hammer to his bride.

In an instant, the hammer fully restores Thor's power.

The thunder god is back with a vengeance.

This is the myth, but what is the reality?

[MUSIC PLAYING]

As Christian armies fought their way north

in the first millennium AD, the Norse

drew inspiration from the story of Thor's resurgence.

When Christianity was being forced upon people,

the-- the idea of Thor, the symbolism of Thor presented

some kind of pagan resistance movement to the overambitious

attempts to baptize people.

NARRATOR: The Christians had the upper hand in wealth weapons,

and men, but the pagans were prepared to fight to the death.

The stage was set.

The battle lines drawn.

The armies of Christ would take on the followers of Thor

for the souls of Northern Europe.

The armies of Christ against the followers of Thor.

The prize, control of Northern Europe.

This is not a mythical showdown.

It actually happened.

For 300 years, in the Dark Ages, kings and chieftains

across the continent collided on the battlefield.

Gradually, the Christians fought their way north

into pagan Scandinavia.

By the 11th century AD, the front lines

reached the Swedish kingdom of Uppsala,

home to some of the last surviving followers of Thor.

There, every nine years, the pagan faithful

engaged in a bizarre and bloody ritual

to honor the thunder god.

TRACEY-ANNE COOPER: At this time,

both men and animals were sacrificed to Thor

and their carcasses were hung up around the temple

and in the trees.

It's quite a-- a grisly ritual.

NARRATOR: In the late 11th century,

this practice was challenged by Sweden's new king, a Christian

named Inge the Elder.

When Inge came to power, most of his subjects

still worshipped Thor.

But he was determined to change that.

MICHAEL DROUT: He enforced Christianity and ended

the sacrifice of horses and other animals

and forbid the pagan rights, and his people did not

like this very much.

NARRATOR: Among the pagan holdouts in Inge's kingdom

was his own brother, Blot-Sven.

He seized on the religious unrest

and made a play for power.

And we see this clash between them

where we have the Christian brother trying to impose

Christianity, but his pagan brother

driving the Christian brother into exile.

NARRATOR: Initially, the pagans succeeded.

But a few years later, Inge regained the upper hand

with a surprise attack on the pagan temple.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

By force and fire, Thor's followers were defeated,

and the Christians claimed Sweden.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Conflicts like this occurred in kingdoms

throughout Northern Europe.

Today, the scars of these clashes can still be seen.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

In the Swedish town of Uppsala, there is a Christian church

with foundations that date back to the 11th century,

the same period when King Inge burned down the pagan temple.

The church may even have been built directly

over the ashes of that temple as a symbol of Christianity's

triumph.

People who are used to going to those places

to celebrate their old religions will now

come to the same places and celebrate the new religion.

And that was in line with what had happened

all across the area when the conversion to Christianity

came.

NARRATOR: Adjacent to the Christian church,

there is a series of pagan burial mounds dating back

to the Dark Ages.

It's believed that this is the largest

pre-Christian grave site in Sweden.

Mounds like these can still be found throughout Scandinavia.

Many have been excavated, and they often

turn up an unmistakable symbol of Thor, small hammer amulets.

They were often cast in bronze and worn around the neck.

These amulets are identifying markers that either I

still believe in Thor or worn as sort of a representation

of trying to evoke the power of these gods

in particular circumstances.

NARRATOR: These artifacts demonstrate the power

of Thor's myth in the ancient Norse world.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

To the Norse, Thor's appeal was in his humanity.

He was a god, but he also had weaknesses.

He possessed strength and courage,

but also, uncontrollable rage.

And just like humans, Thor struggled

with his own limitations.

He's not always the brightest.

He is strong and brave and courageous,

and he defends mankind, but he can be deceived.

And usually, the things that deceive him

are the same things that deceive us.

NARRATOR: In the myth, Thor's shortcomings

are revealed in his struggles with the giants who symbolize

an unconquerable foe, the wrath of nature.

Nature was very much a threatening force.

Nature was the thing that could betray you.

Nature was a thing that was out to get you.

DAVID GEORGE: So all of these stories

are meant to show Thor as the champion of man,

but even in the face of forces of nature, he will lose.

NARRATOR: In one story, an ogre king named Utgarda-Loki seeks

to humiliate Thor, so he assigns him three impossible tasks,

each secretly tied to the forces of nature.

The first challenge is to drink a horn full of ale.

[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]

NARRATOR: It seems easy enough until Thor tries it.

SCOTT LEONARD: And he drinks with all his might,

and he seems to be barely able to change the level of the ale

in the horn.

He's very surprised and bit embarrassed about this.

After all, a god as lusty is Thor

ought to be able to down at least one horn of ale.

NARRATOR: The thunder God has failed his first task,

and the next is even tougher.

Thor is told to lift the paw of a giant cat.

SCOTT LEONARD: And so Thor says, oh of course I can.

He's trying to lift this cat off of the ground.

He can barely get one paw off of the ground.

Now, this is getting embarrassing.

If you can't lift a cat, what is wrong?

NARRATOR: Strike two.

Perhaps Thor is not so powerful after all.

With his reputation on the line, the thunder god

faces his final challenge.

He must wrestle a feeble old woman.

Utgarda-Loki again laughing, and the other giants laughing

at Thor's discomfiture says, well, we'll try an easy one,

then.

Here is this old lady.

Can you wrestle an old lady and beat her in a fight?

NARRATOR: As he prepares to pounce, Thor is overpowered.

The ogre's plan has worked.

Thor is humiliated.

The king now reveals his secret.

SCOTT LEONARD: Utgarda-Loki explains what's happened.

Thor, you were drinking from a horn,

but the horn was set into the sea

so there was no way you could drink from the entire sea.

Secondly, I asked you to pick up my cat.

Well, the cat was the Midgard serpent.

Who can pick up something that rings the Earth?

And thirdly, I asked you to fight with my grandmother.

Well, that wasn't just my grandmother.

That was old age.

And who can defeat old age?

None of us can.

NARRATOR: Thor flies into a rage when he discovers the trick,

but the king instantly vanishes into thin air.

TROY STORFJELL: Utgarda-Loki used magic to trick Thor.

This story shows the contest between Thor's brute strength

and the giants' dark magical powers.

NARRATOR: To the ancient Norse, this story

demonstrated that even the gods can't overcome

the awesome power of nature.

According to Norse belief, Thor would

battle nature's evil ogres until the end of time.

Then, one final epic clash would unfold between the forces

of order and chaos.

It would be called Ragnarok, the Viking Armageddon.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

As Ragnarok's apocalyptic events unfold,

the entire Earth will erupt in tremors.

The sun will darken, and the bitter winter

will grip the Earth for three full years.

Not only will, you know, fire begin to consume everything,

but mountains will begin to fall into the sea.

There will be great earthquakes and terrible floods.

NARRATOR: Ragnarok paints a grim picture

of mankind's final fate.

But it isn't entirely unique.

Many cultures throughout the ages

have predicted a catastrophic doomsday.

Nostradamus, the ancient Maya, even the Romans.

And there is one ancient text that

predicts an eerily similar end of days, the Bible's

Book of Revelation.

The similarities between Revelations and Ragnarok

are in the area of weather phenomena and monsters

rising from the deeps and from the sky and the destruction

of physical world and the bringing

together of all the people who've ever existed,

bringing their souls together and judging them.

NARRATOR: Ironically, despite centuries of bloody conflict

between Christians and pagans, their final prophecies

are intertwined.

But while the Christian and pagan apocalypse stories

may have similarities, in one respect,

they are dramatically different.

In Ragnarok, the gods die.

[MUSIC PLAYING] chapter in Norse mythology.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Ragnarok, the final chapter in Norse mythology.

It is the ultimate clash between order and chaos.

Ragnarok is the great battle between the giants

and the gods, and really, all the bad guys

and all the good guys.

Everything is brought into disarray.

Everything is brought into chaos.

And every god meets his antithesis and his opposite.

It is a cataclysmic battle.

Everything that would be normative in the world

will be turned upside down.

NARRATOR: This seismic clash will culminate

in a long-awaited showdown, the thunder god

Thor against his arch nemesis, the Midgard serpent.

Thor's been itching to fight this Midgard serpent ever

since it was created, and finally, he gets his chance.

This time, there's nobody interfering.

It's just straight up mayhem between the two of them.

The Midgard serpent wraps its coils around Thor

and it's squeezing the life out of him,

but Thor has on his belt which gives him the extra strength,

the power that he needs to even lift his own hammer,

and so he's able to break free of the coils.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

NARRATOR: After a vicious back and forth struggle,

Thor lands a fatal blow.

But in a cruel twist of fate, he is exposed to the lethal venom

that drips from the serpent's wound.

Thor will pay the ultimate price for his victory, his life.

So these two arch adversaries who have been at each other

throughout the mythic cycle finally destroy each other,

and we have the meeting of chaos and order

canceling each other out.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

NARRATOR: According to the myth, when Ragnarok unfolds,

the world as we know it will come to a terrifying end.

All the gods, giants, and most of mankind

will die along with Thor.

In the aftermath of this, the only thing that survives

is the world tree.

And within it, a man and a woman have hidden.

The grass grows again and they meet on the plane

where Asgard had been and they set

about creating a new cosmos.

NARRATOR: A Viking Adam and Eve.

Strangely, the end of Norse myth bears a striking resemblance

to the beginning of the Bible.

But this is more than a coincidence.

When the Ragnarok myth was finally written down

in the 13th century, Christianity was already firmly

rooted in Northern Europe.

To help sway Europe's pagans, Christian missionaries

made Norse mythology a prequel to the Old Testament.

The Norse gods die, and Adam and Eve are born.

DIMITRA FIMI: We can see Ragnarok

as looking at the end of the pagan world.

And obviously, after this great devastating and destructive

event, then a new world can come and Christianity will arrive.

MICHAEL DROUT: So even though this is the doom of the gods,

they kind of wipe the slate clean.

Now, there's a fresh start in a paradisaical world.

And in this beautiful world, there's

a chance to start afresh and to do things properly

and to be good.

This was a way that you could get the old Norse

as the back story and get it to mesh with the Christian idea

that there was and Adam and Eve and a beginning and so forth.

NARRATOR: As Christianity consumed the Norse world,

the followers of Thor went underground for good.

SCOTT LEONARD: The cult of Thor seemed

to fade as the Christian conversion of the North

began to really take hold.

The conversion itself took centuries

to really fully penetrate to everyday custom and belief.

So it was a slow sunset for Thor's religion.

NARRATOR: Centuries after the Christian conversion,

Thor's legacy quietly lives on.

The fifth day of the week, Thursday, is named after him.

It is Thor's day.

And he endures in popular culture

as a comic book and movie hero.

But centuries ago, Thor was far more than a footnote

from a lost religion.

He was the divine protector of the world's most

terrifying warriors.