They see hope for the future in their children just as we mortals do. They themselves may die, but a few from the younger generations of gods and men shall survive even Ragnarok. Death itself is all aspect of change and therefore of life. For the Anglo-Saxon pagan a heroic death really is infinitely preferable to an unchanging, mindlessly happy, eternal life under any absolute, single. sterile divinity. Life is limited and transient by its very nature.
Death is the price to be paid for renewal and new life, and to that extent is to be welcomed.
Warriors who die fighting may be rewarded by all afterlife of combat on the fields of Valhalla, but even the gods and Asgard itself shall be vanquished and pass away one day. If the stories of our gods we have inherited from our pagan ancestors tell us anything. Additional Sources Leaves of Yggdrasil. Freya Aswynn, Llewellyn I990. H. A. Guerber.