Cracks of Doom
The phrase "crack of doom" is the modern English for the Old English term for Ragnarök, the great catastrophe of Norse mythology. The term became used for the Christian Day of Judgement, as by William Shakespeare in Macbeth (Act 4, scene 1, 112). This appealed to Tolkien, who was a Professor of Old English. Another possible source of the name is a long story by Algernon Blackwood.
Read more about this topic: Mount Doom
Famous quotes containing the words cracks and/or doom:
“I would build my house of crystal,
With a solitary friend,
Where the cold cracks like a pistol
And the needle stands on end.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“If, in all the cities, every house that is past repairing could be pulled down or burned up, how great would be the crash, how heaven-high the conflagration. It would be a veritable crack of Doom and glare of the Judgment.”
—Albion Fellows Bacon (1865–1933)