The Little Book of the End of the World Read Online Free PDF

cycles, suggesting that there were eras of history ruled over by different gods. We are currently living in the fifth of these eras, with four such ages having already ended and mankind resurrected each time.
    During the First Sun, the gods created a race of giants and demigods, but a rivalry arose between the sun god Tezcatlipoca and his rival Quetzalcoatl, who deposed the sun and ordered that the giants be consumed by jaguars.
    Quetzalcoatl took control of the Earth during the age of the Second Sun, overseeing the creation of humans, who became less respectful of the gods as the era continued. In anger, Tezcatlipoca turned the people into a race of monkeys who were blown away by hurricanes.
    Tlaloc ruled the Third Sun, but after his wife was stolen – by the trouble-making Tezcatlipoca, no less – Tlaloc refused to look after the Earth. He let humanity die in a drought before wiping the Earth clean in a rain of fire.
    Chalchiuhtlicue took over for the Fourth Sun, but Tezcatlipoca caused strife between her and humanity, suggesting that she didn’t care for her human charges as much as she suggested. A heartbroken Chalchiuhtlicue cried tears of blood, causing a great flood that wiped the Earth clean a fourth time.
    Humanity was resurrected one final time under the Fifth Sun of Huitzilopochtli. However, Huitzilopochtli’s siblings, the gods of the night, became jealous of his glory, staging nightly attacks on his sun. The Aztec peoples worshiped Huitzilopochtli and prayed for his success in these battles, knowing that if they failed, the world would fall into eternal darkness and end in a great earthquake.
----
    RAGNAROK
----
    The Aztecs were not alone in their specific beliefs about the End of the World: Norse mythology went one step further to develop a complicated theory about the war that would accompany the Endtimes of their own mythology, and exactly how that battle would play out. With so many myths and legends about water and fire, it should come as no surprise that the Norse Apocalypse, or Ragnarok, is a story overflowing with elemental references, whether it’s the crashing waves caused by the sea serpent Jormungandr or the flames breathed by the dragon Surtr.
    Ragnarok details an epic battle between the Norse gods and their enemies, with humanity caught in the middle. There are also references aplenty to flaming skies, floods and Earth being plunged into darkness. It doesn’t take much to draw a line between the image of a flaming sky and the meteors we’ve already mentioned, nor a darkened Earth as an explanation for an eclipse.
    Do we then believe that Ragnarok is a theory about a possible future or, as with these other religions we’ve discussed, a proto-scientific attempt to explain events as and when they happened?
    It’s probably the latter: the events of Ragnarok, as outlined in the Edda collection of stories and poetry, are strangely specific about the death count amongst the Norse gods, right down to lost limbs, who fights whom and how many steps Thor takes after being poisoned while killing a giant snake.
    The comic-book version of Thor that has been appearing in recent movies is a different, fictional take on the same character, but there have been plenty of references and interpretations to Ragnarok and other pieces of Norse myth throughout his lengthy publishing history.
    Not only do some of the gods survive Ragnarok, but Norse mythology even has its very own human survivors to repopulate the Earth, Lif and Lifthrasir. Their existence echoes the original role held by the mythological progenitors of humanity, Ask and Embla.
    Any similarities to Adam and Eve are just pure coincidence, right?

4
    THE GOOD BOOK: ORIGINS OF THE APOCALYPSE
    Despite the intricacies of Ragnarok, Norse mythology is not unique: it is not the only belief system to embrace the Endtimes and is certainly not the only one to have specific stories about how, when and why the End of the World might happen.
    Most of the religions