Fenrir

Fenrir, also called Fenrisúlfr, is the monstrous wolf, son of the god Loki and the giantess Angrboda, begotten in Jötunheimr. His siblings are the serpent Jörmungandr, who encircles the world, and Hel, lady of the realm of the dead. Warned by the prophecies that this offspring would bring great evils, the Aesir gods brought Fenrir to Asgard to raise him among themselves and watch him closely. Only the god Týr had the courage to approach and feed him. The wolf, however, grew at a prodigious rate and became fiercer each day, so that the gods' fear did not cease to grow.

The Eddas foretell that Fenrir's captivity will not be eternal. When Ragnarök comes, the twilight of the gods, the wolf will break his bonds and advance with his jaws gaping wide, so enormous that the lower jaw brushes the earth and the upper one touches the sky, while fire pours from his eyes and his snout. In the final battle he will devour Odin, father of the gods. His death will be avenged at once by Víðarr, son of Odin, who will set one foot upon the wolf's lower jaw and, gripping the upper one, will tear his maw apart until he slays him. Fenrir thus embodies the primordial chaos and the cyclical destruction that precedes the renewal of the world.

Alarmed by his size, the gods resolved to chain Fenrir. They first forged a stout chain called Læðingr and then another even stronger, Drómi, but the wolf broke both without effort. Understanding that no ordinary forging would suffice, Odin sent Skírnir, the messenger of Freyr, to Svartálfheim (Niðavellir), where the dwarfs, commissioned by the gods, forged the binding Gleipnir. Though as fine and smooth as a silken ribbon, it was made of six impossible ingredients: the sound of a cat's step, the beard of a woman, the roots of a mountain, the sinews of a bear, the breath of a fish, and the spittle of a bird. Distrustful, Fenrir only agreed to be bound if a god placed his hand between his jaws as a pledge of good faith, and only Týr consented. When the wolf found that he could not break Gleipnir, he clamped his jaws shut and tore off Týr's hand at the wrist, the 'wolf-joint'. The gods fastened the binding to a great slab, Gjöll, and to a peg, Þviti, sunk deep in the earth, and thrust a sword between his jaws to hold them open. There, on the island of Lyngvi, Fenrir remained chained until Ragnarök.