Gullinkambi was the golden rooster of Valhalla — the cockerel with a comb of gold who perches over the hall of the slain and whose crowing will wake the heroes and the gods on the morning of Ragnarök, when the final battle is at hand. He is the alarm-bell of the end of the world, the golden cock whose crow heralds the doom of the gods.
The Golden-Combed Cock
Gullinkambi (Old Norse Gullinkambi, “golden comb”) was a rooster with a comb of shining gold who dwells in Valhalla, perched above or among Odin's hall of the heroic dead. He is one of three roosters named in the Norse prophecy of the world's end — one that crows for the gods, one (a soot-red cock) that crows for the dead in Hel, and one that crows in the giants' world — each heralding the coming of Ragnarök to its own realm. Gullinkambi is the cock of the gods and the heroes, the golden bird of Valhalla.
The Crow That Wakes the Heroes
Gullinkambi's great role comes at the dawn of Ragnarök. When the doom of the gods is at last at hand, it is Gullinkambi whose crowing wakes the Einherjar — the slain warriors gathered in Valhalla — rousing the heroes from their feasting to take up their arms and march out to the final battle alongside the gods. As a rooster's crow announces the dawn, so Gullinkambi's golden crowing announces the last dawn of all, the morning of the end of the world, calling the warriors of Odin to the war they have been kept and trained for since their deaths. His crow is the wake-up call of the apocalypse.
The Three Roosters of the End
The Norse prophecy of Ragnarök names the crowing of the cocks among the great signs of the coming end. As Gullinkambi crows to wake the gods and heroes in Valhalla, the soot-red rooster Fjalar crows to the giants in the gallows-wood, and a third rooster crows in the halls of Hel to rouse the dead. The crowing of these birds across all the worlds — the world of the gods, the world of the giants, the world of the dead — signals that the bonds are breaking, the monsters are loosing, and the final battle has come. Gullinkambi is the golden voice of that alarm in the hall of heaven.
The Cock of the Last Dawn
Gullinkambi endures as the golden rooster of Valhalla and the herald of Ragnarök — the cock whose crowing wakes the heroes for the end of the world. He embodies the Norse vision of the apocalypse as something heralded and awaited, announced by signs and crowing birds across all the worlds; and he gives the great cosmic drama of the end a homely and unforgettable image: a golden-combed rooster crowing at the last dawn, waking the warriors of heaven to march out to their doom.
When the last dawn breaks, a rooster with a comb of gold will crow over the hall of the slain — and the heroes will wake and take up their arms for the end of the world.