Fimbulwinter
Definitions
Wiktionary
- n. One of the signs of the onset of the end of this world; the final, three-year-long winter (with no intervening summers), it marks the coming of the Ragnarok, the battle that will end the world.
'Fimbulwinter' translates from Old Norse as 'mighty or great winter.' Sometimes 'Fimbul-winter.'
Examples
“In a Snowball Earth, ice stretches all the way from the poles to the equator, the oceans freezing over. Norse mythology has a word for it: after Fimbulwinter, the ‘winter of winters’ in which the Earth was gripped with ice, comes Ragnarok, the end of the world.”
Gabrielle Walker, ‘Will Earth Freeze to Death?’ The Telegraph, April 3, 2003
“Before Ragnarok evil passes all bounds. For three years there is perpetual strife. . . .Then follow three years of constant winter the Fimbulwinter the great winter.”
“The Fimbul-winter has been compared to the long preliminary fight under the walls of Troy, and Ragnarok, the grand closing drama of Northern mythology, to the burning of that famous city.”
