Ragnarok
looms on the horizon of Norse mythology at every turn. The story of Fenrir is
not done, even after his chaining. We’ll even set the scene.
Fenrir
took the hand of Tyr. Though noble Tyr willingly sacrificed his hand to chain
the monster, the gods retreated. Fenrir lashed about trying to break the silken
band. The earth did tremble, and the band quivered, but its strength proved the
greater. In fear, the gods retreated. There, on the peak, did Fenrir calm
himself, hunter’s eyes did narrow on the last of the gods. “Flee from me,
Aesir. I will bide your time, and in the end of days will I break my chain and
have my revenge.”
We’ll even throw a “To be
continued” sign hanging in the air as the scene fades out. Toss in a wolf snarl
before the sign disappears, and we’re all good.
So, as said before, Fenrir is a
check box for Ragnarok, like many others. Some events, like the Death of
Baldur, are very difficult to avoid. How do you actually prevent someone from
being killed for all eternity? Others, however, seem more straightforward. Fenrir,
for instance, appears to have a straightforward solution. Like everyone who has
ever read a Batman comic wonders, why doesn’t someone kill the Joker and be
done with him? It’s not like the guy hasn’t earned the death penalty a
bazillion times over. The answer for the comic book is simply that he’s a popular
villain, and others want to use him in the future. But for Norse mythology, why
don’t the gods kill Fenrir?
We know that the gods can and will
die, just from the existence of Ragnarok. We have yet to get to it, but Fenrir
will also die at Ragnarok, so why not kill him before? We have to bring fate
into consideration. The Norse, like many other cultures, believe in fate. The
story is written, we have yet to get to the end of it. According to the fated
story, Fenrir will die at Ragnarok. It’s not possible for him to die
beforehand. Logically, then, any attempt to kill Fenrir, to circumvent the
fated prophecy, will bring it about. The time at which Fenrir dies is Ragnarok, no matter what. Killing him
will bring Ragnarok early. This is the ultimate trick of prophecy that stymied
so many of the Greeks (seriously, never go to Delphi, ask Oedipus).
Odin actually has a unique plan
to—sort of—circumvent the prophecy. Instead of cutting things out of the story,
he inserts more story into the book. Or, to give it the cultural analogy, instead
of cutting Fenrir’s thread out of the tapestry of life, he splices in more
tapestry (the Norse, like the Greeks and many others, viewed fate as being
spun, woven, and cut as threads in a tapestry).
So Fenrir,
like Loki—who was likewise chained up after killing Baldur, is actually
protected by prophecy. The gods dare not do anything more than restrain him
lest they bring about the destruction they seek to avoid.