A Norse narrative from Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda in which the gods, warned by prophecy that the wolf Fenrir will kill Odin at Ragnarok, raise him among themselves but ultimately deceive him into accepting the magical fetter Gleipnir, cast by the dwarfs from six impossible things; Fenrir, suspicious, agrees only if a god will place a hand in his mouth as surety, and only Tyr consents, losing his hand when the binding proves inescapable and Fenrir realizes he has been tricked.
Facts
Scholarship and Forensics
Scholarly NoteGleipnir is described as forged from six things held not to exist: the sound of a cat's footfall, a woman's beard, a mountain's roots, a bear's sinews, a fish's breath and a bird's spittle, an impossible object motif folklorists recognize elsewhere as a device for making an unbreakable bond out of things that, by definition, leave no trace to break. 1 Scholarly NoteScholars of Norse religion read Tyr's sacrificed hand as the myth's own explanation for why a god otherwise associated with law and binding oaths appears one handed, tying a physical attribute of the god directly to the narrative that accounts for it. 1 History
Historical NoteSnorri's account, composed around 1220 AD, is the fullest surviving version, though Fenrir and the binding are independently referenced in earlier Eddic poems including Voluspa and Lokasenna, both preserved in the thirteenth century Codex Regius but understood to record older material. 1 Sources
Primary SourceSnorri Sturluson's Prose Edda, Gylfaginning section, is the fullest surviving witness, read alongside the earlier and more fragmentary references in the Poetic Edda. 1 Meaning
Central MotifA god's sacrificed hand as the price of a trick that binds an unbindable wolf until Ragnarok 1 Text
Source TextProse Edda, Gylfaginning 1 Controversy
Point in DisputeScholars are divided on how far Snorri's detailed prose account, written some two and a half centuries after Christianization, reliably preserves the pre-Christian version of the story against how far it reflects his own thirteenth century literary shaping of scattered older poetic references. 1 Cross-Tradition Connections
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