Ragnarok

IN CASE YOU WERE WONDERING ………

In Norse mythology Ragnarok was a series of events, including a great battle, leading to the cataclysmic destruction of the cosmos and everything in it – the Twilight of the Gods. If you want to discover the whole saga for yourself in greater detail you could do worse than to start at the website https://norse-mythology.org. What follows below is simply the list of characters with a brief description so you know which bit of the epic tale you just happen to be stitching.

• The Three Norns (bottom left) represented What Was, What Is and What Will Be. They spun the threads of life sitting beneath Yggdrasil (the Tree of Life sprouting from the prow of the boat).
• The Midgard Serpent (just above the Norns) emerged from the sea sending giant waves crashing to the land.
• The Fenrir Wolf (big central creature in the boat) broke free of his chains.
• Skoll and Hati (two smaller wolves positioned to the left of the boat hull and just behind Fenrir’s back leg) swallowed the sun and moon, then the stars disappeared. One bears a circle representing the sun on his side and the other a crescent moon.
• The God Odin is in the guise of an eagle which is flying just above his eight-legged horse Slepnir.
• Garm, the Watchdog (bottom far right) was the Guardian of the Gates of Hell and is on his annual holidays hence no gates.
• The Three Roosters (sitting on the shark’s head) were Fialar the All Knower who warned the world of the beginning of Ragnarok, the second known as Nameless echoed the warning in Hel and the third, Gullinkambi “Golden Comb” warned the Gods.
• The Black Flowers (to the left of the hull) represent the passing of the old order.
• Nidhoggr was a malicious dragon-serpent (perched on the bottle) who flew over the battle ground eating the corpses.
• Naglfar (centre) was a boat made from the finger and toe nails of the dead and used to ferry the forces of chaos to do battle with the Gods.
• Huginn and Muninn (centre) were a pair of ravens that flew across the earth bringing intelligence to their master, the God Odin.
• The Two Survivors, Lif (the woman) and Lifthrasir (the man) – dancing on the Tapir who just happened to wander in from another sampler – survived the chaos by hiding in the forest behind Yggdrasil and went on to repopulate the earth after the new world rose from the waters – fertile, beautiful and green.

Everything else – the Morris Dancers on top of the tower, the Elephants, the Narwhale, the Great White Shark, the RocKing Horn (top left), the Drunk with his Pet Dragon Ernest, the Ship in the Bottle, the two Pointing Fingers et al are all “red herrings” intended to distract and mislead. Odin would have loved them all. He and his ravens were very partial to a buckling or three with their mead.

Comes to you as a pdf strapped to the handle of a Viking war sword. Well, what else would you expect?

• Area in stitches: 309 x 361