el barbaro del ritmo

Sorry to chop this phrase from context, but it describes well the way
I view the myths. Heathen myths, while meant to convey truths and a
general conception of the sacred, and while taken more literally than
stories as such, seem generally to have been understood in mytho-
poetically rather than in an absolute literalism. The world itself was
thought of in a more fluid and mysterious way, less in a mechanistic
or monotheistic way. Attempts to resolve contradiction and complexity,
to smooth heathen edges, are a reflection of the latter.

What's most interesting in the Ragnarok tale to me is this sense of
the dangers inherent in the world (as exemplified in jotuns and such)
can mesh into a great danger, a great disaster (a concept known in
many mythologies) and that from this can arise a better world with
utopian elements. This is a mythological motif that may be viewed on
its own grand scale or be adapted to the experiences of the most
mundane life.