Fenrir and the monster as a force of nature, reconnecting with the great wolf
Does the mythological binding of Fenrir symbolize the attempt of hoarding nature’s abundance in favour of humans? And does the following text also warn of the coming disastrous consequences of this?
Monster is a word derived from the Greek ‘monstrum’ meaning divine omen. Today, it’s normally a word for a dumb block of CGI posing as the antagonist in Hollywood movies. Very often, the monster in stories can be seen as a stand-in for the forces of nature and the theme of the story how humans have to overcome nature in order to thrive. It would seem that in the aftermath of the stories, this tactic hasn’t turned out very well.
There is some kind of parallel between the degrading use of the word ‘monster’ and the growth of modernity.
During the middle ages, 12–1300, it was used as describing a sign from the gods.
In the renaissance of the 1400's, it was also used for signs, more often in the form of unusually shaped animals, or fabled animals that represented different traits, like the griffin.
Only during the time of colonization and witch trials from the 1500's did it come to mean ‘animal of vast size’, or, interestingly, ‘person of inhuman cruelty or moral deformity’.
And finally in the industrial age of the 1800's, ‘monster’ became an adjective to describe anything of vast proportions and usually ill intentions. Here though, the monster acts on its own accord, not as an omen or a messenger.
During the time when the myth of Fenrir was composed, there was still a connection between monster and message.
Fenrir is the great wolf in Norse mythology, who in the younger Edda was seen as such a threat by the Åsgårdian gods, that they had him chained on a faraway island. While he is not directly called a monster in the texts, he certainly fits the description of how the word is used today, and as we shall see, also the original meaning.
The younger Edda is a work inspired by Norse mythology and one of the few written sources we have on it today. It was written by Snorre Sturlason, who was a politician and a royalist during a time when Norway was already officially, and for the most part reluctantly, christian. It is likely that the way gods and jotuns were portrayed in his texts would have been done in a way that wouldn’t challenge the christian cosmology of order as something imposed and willful, or the importance of a strong, centralized ruler.
The name Fenrir, or Fenris, as he is also called in the Norwegian texts, is generally translated to ‘dweller in the marsh’, from the first syllable ‘Fen’, meaning marsh, or wetland and a presumption that ‘rir’ is a suffix indicating belonging. This is a very far stretch linguistically, and it’s closer to assume that it is the ‘ris’ which means to rise up, that gives the name meaning. So the translation would be closer to ‘the one that rises from the wetlands’.
However, the old Norse alphabet was runic, so the sign letters themselves would have a magical meaning in addition to its linguistic meaning.
The first rune in Fenrir, ‘feu’, symbolizes abundance. From this we can ask the question; does the mythological binding of Fenrir symbolize the attempt of hoarding nature’s abundance in favour of humans? And does the following text also warn of the coming disastrous consequences of this?
Fenrir, along with his siblings Hel and Jormundgand, were all contained in different ways due to the Åsgårdian gods being told that their coming would signal the end of the world of gods. It is also implied that the gods kept Fenrir at Åsgård for a time first, purposefully overfeeding him and making him grow out of proportions in the hope of using him as a warrior for their side later on. Of course, Ragnarok, the end of the time of gods, came about anyway, and one of the starting points was Fenrir breaking out of his bonds. But would that have happened if he was never bound in the first place? Did the gods put the nail in their own coffin by having Fenrir chained, thus disrupting a balance by containing what is in essence a greater force of nature, only to worsen the effects when it inevitably breaks free?
During the course of our current civilization, humans have made themselves gods, while nature has been constantly presented as something to overcome and conquer. Almost all our current myths and stories are about how the free and natural world was suppressed and destroyed in order to make way for human settlements and exploitative civilization.
The impulse that made the gods in the myth have Fenris bound is the same impulse that makes governments today build dams blocking rivers from overflowing human settlements and controlling irrigation. This is done without any regard to what that interference does to the ecosystem, or what happens when the dam breaks.
It is the same impulse that makes garden owners aggressively remove species that disturb their ideas of what land should look like, while at the same time introducing toxins that build up in the system and impact everything from birds and wildlife to their own health. It’s seeing the strength and working of nature, and panic.
It is also seen in how modern medicine treats the body. When I was little it was fashionable to remove children’s tonsils to reduce respiratory illness. The tonsils are lymphatic glands and your immune systems’ first line of defense against harmful viruses and particles. Any big invasion of your body tends to show up there in the form of swollen or infected glands, causing sore throat and other unpleasant symptoms.
There were a lot of respiratory problems with kids at my school, which we later found out was riddled with asbestos. Rather than taking the hint and trying to find the cause of the illness, the defense was confused with the attack and the symptoms were repressed. By removing part of people’s immune system, the symptoms were alleviated, but the toxins would still build up, and the problems pushed to other parts of the body, most likely contributing to vague and chronic problems later on.
Fenrir can be seen as the global immune system. He is the dandelion pressing through dead asphalt to make the soil fertile again, the hurricane that flushes out clogged up marshes and brings cool water to overheated coral reefs. All this can be seen as violent, chaotic, and disruptive to how humans officially like to have their surroundings organized, but suppressing it will accumulate the problems, and all chains will break sooner or later.
Luckily, there are some that are starting to take the hint. Groups for pollinator friendly yards or regenerative agriculture are popping up. Movements to open paved over rivers are gaining popularity, but at the same time we are losing wild nature at a frightening speed to the industrial demands.
Even if it’s far too late to stop the inevitable fall of the gods of our time, it’s never too late for each person to find and repair the connection to the living world by allowing nature to have more room in your life, your surroundings, and your heart, with all its risks and wonders.