RAGNAROSIS A Treatise on an Enduring Fascination [Intro: war horn, low male choir] Hoooo-oooh! Hey! Hey! Skål! [Verse I] It started innocently, one ordinary night, The North, some history, longships in sight. And Ragnar staring seaward, hungry to know: “What lies beyond? Why shouldn’t we go?” And that was my downfall. Not axe, not sword, But that restless hunger to venture forward. One can hold power and sit on a throne, Or raise up the sail and pursue the unknown. [Warriors] Hey! Ho! Row! Row! To the unknown! [Chorus] Praise those who sailed when the storm winds roared, When the sea cared nothing for title or lord. For courage, for skill, for the seafarer’s art, For seeing the horizon as a place to start. Hey! Hey! Skål! And Ragnar? Here reason surrenders the fight. He was meant to be fiction for one quiet night. The series is over, the years have gone past, Yet he’s built Kattegat in my head to last. [Choir] Rag-nar... Rag-nar... [Verse II] Those warriors were more than legends and tales, They read stars, wind and water and trusted their sails. Merchants and sailors, explorers and fighters, Shipwrights and wanderers, horizon igniters. No forecasts, no satellites showing the way, Just timber-built vessels confronting the spray. No spotless saints carved in marble or stone, But through their voyages wider worlds became known. [Warriors] Hey! Ho! Oars to the sea! [Chorus] Praise the courage that sailed beyond maps, Through wind, through cold, through ocean’s traps. Toward distant shores and horizons anew, Chasing the question: “What lies beyond view?” Meanwhile Ragnar looks up from beneath those brows. Reason says: “It’s television. Calm down.” My fascination answers: “So?” HEY! [Verse III] One simple series, a trivial affair, Produced an obsession remarkably rare. It started with Ragnar, then sagas appeared, Old voyages, legends and gods once revered. Reason replied with scholarly precision: “Could we settle for cultural appreciation?” So I’ll admire Ragnar quite happily here, Where the ground stays beneath me and sofas are near. [Choir] Ragnar! Ragnar! Skål! [Bridge] You start with an actor, then reach for old texts, For ships and old maps and whatever comes next. For them the horizon, forbidding and vast, Was never a wall, but a doorway to pass. [Rowing chant] Ho! Ho! Ho! Ho! Sometimes discovery begins with a question cast far: “What might be out there?” [War horn] HOOOO-OOOH! And you sail. [Finale] Years have gone by. The series is done. The world carried onward. The longships are gone. The story concluded. The fascination remained. Theoretically, therefore, the matter is closed. The curtain has fallen, the final scene posed. One might reasonably state, with academic conviction, That fascination should depart with the fiction. Should. A word of considerable importance here. [A lone warrior] Ragnar... Because apparently nobody informed Ragnar. [Choir, rising] Rag-nar... Rag-nar... Reason says: “The series ended years ago.” I say: “I know.” [Silence] Reason, visibly exhausted, asks: “Then why are you still thinking about Ragnar?” SKÅL! And here, regrettably, we reach the limits of modern science. The series ended. The fascination was never informed. [Final war horn] HOOOO-OOOH! RAGNAR! SKÅL! 🪵🪓
