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Odin will make straight for Fenrir; and Thor, right beside him, will be unable to help because Jormungand, his old enemy, will at once attack him. Freyr will fight the fire giant Surt, but will become the first of all gods to lose as he has given his own good sword to his servant Skirnir. It will still be a long struggle though, before Freyr will succumb. Tyr will manage to kill Garm, but will be so severely wounded that he will die shortly after the hound. Heimdall will encounter Loki, and neither survive the evenly-matched encounter. Thor will kill Jormungand with his hammer Mjollnir, but only be able to stagger back nine steps before falling dead himself, poisoned by the venom that Jormungand spews over him. Odin will fight with his mighty spear Gungnir against Fenrir but will finally be eaten by the wolf after a long battle. To avenge his father, Vidar will immediately come forward and place one foot on the wolf's lower jaw. On this foot he will be wearing the shoe which he has been making since the beginning of time; it consists of the strips of leather which men pare off at the toes and heels of their shoes. With one hand he will grasp the wolf's upper jaw and tear its throat asunder, killing it at last.
Then, Surt will burn the whole world with fire. Death will come to all manner of things. The sun will go black and the stars will cast down from the heavens. Fumes will reek and flames will burst, scorching the sky with fire. The earth will sink into the sea.
After the destruction, a new earth will arise out of the sea, green and fair. Corn will ripen in fields that were never sown. The meadow Idavoll, in the now-destroyed Asgard, will have been spared. The sun will reappear as Sol, before being swallowed by Skoll, give birth to a daughter as fair as she herself. This maiden daughter will pursue her mother's road in the new sky.
A few gods will survive the ordeal: Odin's brother Vili, Odin's sons Vidar and Vali, Thor's sons Modi and Magni, who will inherit their father's magic hammer Mjollnir, and Honir, who will hold the wand and foretell what is to come. Balder and his brother Hod, who dies prior to Ragnarok, will come up from Hel and dwell in Odin's former hall, Valhalla, in the heavens. Meeting at Idavoll, these gods will sit down together, discuss their hidden lore, and talk over many things that had happened, including the evil of Jormungand and Fenrir. In the waving grass, they will find the golden chessboards that the Aesir used to own, and gaze at them in wonder. (None of the goddesses were mentioned in various accounts of the aftermath of Ragnarok, but there are assumptions that Frigg, Freya and the other goddesses had survived.)
Two humans will also escape the destruction of the world by hiding themselves deep within Yggdrasil—some say Hodmimir's Wood— where Surt's sword cannot destroy. They will be called Lif and Lifthrasir. Emerging from their shelter, they will live on morning dew and will repopulate the human world. They will worship their new pantheon of gods, led by Balder.
There will still be many halls to house the souls of the dead. According to the 'Prose Edda', another heaven exists south of and above Asgard, called Andlang , and a third heaven further above that, called Vidblain ; and these places will offer protection while Surt's fire burns the world. According to both 'Eddas', after Ragnarok, the best place of all will be Gimli , a building fairer than the sun, roofed with gold, in the heaven. There, the gods will live at peace with themselves and each other. There will be Brimir , a hall on Okolnir ("never cold"), where plenty of good drink will be served. And there will be Sindri , an excellent hall made wholly of red gold, on Nidafjoll ("dark mountains"). The souls of the good and virtuous will live in these halls.
The 'Prose Edda' also mentions another hall called Nastrond ("corpse strand"). That place in the underworld will be as vile as it is vast: no sunlight will reach it; all its doors will face north; its walls and roof will be made of wattled snakes, with their heads facing inward, spewing so much poison that it runs in rivers in the hall. Here, oath breakers, murderers, and philanderers will wade through those rivers forever.
And, in the worst place of all, Hvergelmir, Nidhogg, also a survivor of Ragnarok, will bedevil the bodies of the dead, sucking blood from them.
After all, in this new world, wickedness and misery no longer exist and gods and men will live together in peace and harmony. The descendants of Lif and Lifthrasir will inhabit Midgard.
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