NorsePlay Researches: how big is the battlefield of Ragnarök?
While reading the Faulkes' translation of the Prose Edda, there's some hard numerical facts being thrown at King Gylfi by High, Just As High, and Third. In using these exact figures, it lends a level of concrete certainty and reportage to their account of things, which as readers and potential participants/victims of this fate, is unsettling. So to give ourselves an idea of the exact scale of The Twilight Of The Gods, and hopefully some sort of edge when the time comes, let's do some pre-doomsday math crunching so we know what to expect.
When the three start speaking about Ragnarök, the scale of Vígríðr, the plain where this final battle unfolds, is brought up and given as 200 by 200 leagues, so this makes it 600 by 600 land miles, which means this becomes 360,000 square miles!
To compare historically, we've only got WW2's Battle of Moscow which had a front of 373 miles, or if we go naval there's WW2's Battle of Leyte Gulf that spread over 100,000 square miles, both of which hardly measure up to Vígríðr's 360K square miles.
To place Vígríðr's area within a current global scale perspective, it would be a massive battle covering the areas of Texas & Oklahoma combined:
| [I really tried with geographically precise prompts here, but AI seriously ran amok with this in a far more dramatic art mural Amon Amarth gatefold album cover direction. Thanks, Gemini.] |
And sure, you're probably saying to yourself, well, this still leaves alot of Midgard unaffected, I could totally not get inadvertently drafted or steamrolled by that conflict if I'm nowhere near it, right?
The Norns bet against you: Look, you're first going to have to make it past a three-year Fimbulwinter, all of treacherous & starving humanity turning on itself, using your axe & sword skills anyway to even make it to that point, and then just maybe be near Hoddmímis Holt's Muspellfire-proof tree trunk shelter before the seas rise if you're even that lucky, and only if Líf & Lífþrasir are actually kennings for those few who are still alive and possess enough survivalist love of life to make it through such finalities.
Guillermo Maytorena IV knew there was something special in the Norse Lore when he picked up a copy of the d'Aulaires' Norse Gods and Giants at age seven. Since then he's been fascinated by the truthful potency of Norse Mythology, passionately read & studied, embraced Ásatrú, launched the Map of Midgard project, and spearheaded the neologism/brand NorsePlay. If you have employment/opportunities in investigative mythology, field research, or product development to offer, do contact him.
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