Voluspa

The translation of the stanza from the Voluspa below looked funny to me, so I checked a couple of other translations and the original in Old Norse.

I think it should be translated as:

The sun turns black.
Earth sinks into sea.
Bright stars
fall from the sky.
Steam and fire
gush forth.
Intense heat plays
with heaven.

Not much different, except for lines five and six, which were the lines that puzzled me.

I could easily be wrong. My Old Norse is very old.

In any case, it sounds like a volcanic eruption.