#fenrir.

you’d eat the sky without a second thought if meant a five second respite from grief.

although it is not explicitly expressed in any particular attestation (that i know of), i do chose to view fenrir as a god of wolves – on top of being the norse god of destruction. this due to his status as the most significant, infamous wolf in the mythology, as well as the oldest, fiercest and largest of angrboda’s offspring. keeping this in mind, i choose to view him as the ultimate symbolic representative of what wolves are in norse mythology.

DESTRUCTIVENESS AND WOLF SYMBOLISM

wolves, in northern europe, were subject to an complex treatment:

on one hand: they were a true threat for the average peasant, whose experience with them was that of a beastly predator that threatened their flocks and even the peasants themselves and their children. there’s even the case of the wolfssegner, typically destitute elderly men who made a living in certain germanic tribes selling charms against wolf attacks, or casting malevolent spells that would prompt them. their customers were, naturally, farmers and peasants. throughout the working class and the poor there’s this commonality of viewing wolves as destructive forces, as malevolent. yet, on the other hand, the warrior classes saw the wolf for his might – his power, his wildness, and fierceness – as well as social traits, his capability for pack bonds. wolves were also associated with odin, having two wolves as his pets (geri and freki) and of all berserkers it’s the wolf warriors (the úlfhéðnar) who are sometimes seen as odin’s special warriors. when they’re viewed on this angle they’re seen as noble, brave, loyal, and wise.

as a rule, the pack was seen as a symbol of camaraderie, and it was lone wolves who were the problem. the word for outlaw in northern europe was “wolf’s head”, referring to the bounty on the severed heads of lone wolves who became a problem to settled villages and needed to be exterminated.

well, fenrir didn’t get to be seen as noble, loyal, or wise. in many ways he is the prototypical lone wolf figure – kidnapped by the aesir, torn from his clan and family to keep him from becoming the predicted destructive force he was to become. he was denied a pack, and so ironically it only pushed him further toward rebellion and mayhem; he grows progressively but quickly and as he grows he turns even more of a ravenous threat in the gods’ eyes, forcing the gods to bind him. it’s easy to see the similarities, how commonfolk’s fear of wolves – especially the lone wolf – would be reflected in their deities. as a jotunn, and more specifically a rokkr, fenrir represents nature’s more destructive qualities, a chaotic primordial force that can be interpreted as downright hostile to mankind. yet, seeing him only in a negative light is limiting, in my opinion, everything that fenrir is, and it’s just plain inaccurate, as it is framing fenrir in the absolutist moral framework of christianity. the jotnar are not evil, they’re not demons, they’re merely oppositional to the aesir because of the inherent way their essences and wants (to be amongst nature and accept it as is, good and bad) clash with the aesir’s wants (to tame nature’s useful side for their benefit and fight against its more harmful aspects to protect themselves and mankind). the struggle against fenrir is one of the most elementary examples of this jotnar/aesir conflict.

fenris is, in many ways, jotun essence taken to its furthest point, its ultimate uncompromised end. this means understanding that when we say that the jotnar are, by nature, part of nature… that means also that they partake of the entirety of nature and not just the euphemized happy bits that we like to pretend are what nature “really is”. every part of nature is dangerous and not terribly disposed to privilege humans over any other part. the sea eats people, the fire lays waste to countrysides, the ice storm freezes you, the earth will receive your corpse and fill it with maggots. our planet whirls around a sun that will burn out, in a galaxy that will wind down and disintegrate before it can explode again into life.

to understand these things as not only “not negative” but as awesome, mind‑bending, even beautiful ‑ that’s how we understand jotun nature. it’s terrifying, yes ‑ and there is also a good and benevolent side, but you don’t get only that aimed at you, ever. it’s about accepting the whole package without this secret fingers‑crossed idea that if they just like you enough, the forces of nature will make a special exception for you. and that doesn’t work.

to see Fenris is to see a magnificent creature who must be chained, or he’ll eat the world. it’s seeing the grandeur of a hurricane, an earthquake, a solar flare, and knowing that this too is the hand of the divine… and at the same time knowing that they will do terrible harm. Fenris is what he is, entirely and fully, and he will not compromise himself to be anything else for anyone else… even if he must be bound. are there things about your nature that you would rather be imprisoned than compromise? If not, then perhaps you might not understand Fenris. he embodies our ambivalence toward the universe, which sees us as expendable flecks of dust. … and the only way to get around that is to see from a higher perspective, one that can appreciate the divinity of ambivalences.- X

fenrir is not just an agent of change. he is change itself, the ultimate threat on the status quo of the gods. and because of that, as he brings about ragnarok, he’s an agent of renewal and transformation.

fenrir, like the wolf’s hook cross, is a representation of unchangeable fate. there is an aura of fatality surrounding him that the gods sense, and none more so than odin, because it is primarily his existence which is subject to fenrir’s whim. odin, having heard the prophecies of the volva (fenrir’s own mother, angrboda) knew that his son balder would be slain, that his brother hodur would do this act. that the rökkr forces would break free of their bonds, and destroy the gods. and that finally he, odin, would die within the massive jaws of fenrir.

thus, the binding of fenrir with gleipner is nothing but a postponement of the inevitable. it is merely an instance of the gods, and odin in particular, performing, and realizing, their role. for, although the fate incurred by fenrir may be unavoidable and unchangeable, it does not necessarily mean defeat or resignation. one of the great lessons of the rökkr is that this life is nothing, that there is no integral meaning to it, and that it can all so easily be consumed by fenrir. the purpose of living, then, is to realize this truth, and then to build ones own worth and meaning from existence. - X

PATRON OF WOLVES, WARGS, AND WEREWOLVES

fenrir is not a friendly god, and he’s not an easy god to worship. he’s not even a welcoming god. he’s demanding, intense and he can see through the souls of the most hard-hearted individuals, and frighten them. for him, vacuous violence and bloodlust isn’t enough – he demands your sincerity, your raw emotion, your anger; you need to be true to him or he will not bother with you, and in fact might even offend him and make him hostile. humans, in particular, need a specially strong connection to nature (physical nature, and their inner nature) in order to connect with him. and if you do manage that, he can make an unstoppable force out of you. he is, on top of everything else, a god of last resorts and if you’re ever in dire need of protection you can count on him to intervene.

this all being said, humans are not his only believers. they’re not even his main believers, since people tend to turn to more approachable (and relatable) deities like the aesir first. fenrir focuses mainly on wolves, and in midgard it’s not entirely rare for him to be near them, helping them, or using them as emissaries. he focuses on wargs, the norse wolf-like beings that inhabit ironwood alongside the volvas, considering he’s the oldest of them, and his mother reigns over them as chieftess. and he focuses lastly on werewolves.