The only thing that could bind the wolf Fenrir was a silken ribbon, and the price of applying it was a god’s right hand. This episode builds a narrative biography of the monster of Norse legend using the thirteenth-century Icelandic Poetic Edda and Prose Edda compiled by Snorri Sturluson, along with rune stones from across the Viking world, following him from his birth to Loki and the giantess Angrboda, alongside the serpent Jormungandr and Hel, to his apocalyptic role at Ragnarok.

The conversation examines why Odin banished the serpent and Hel but raised the wolf in Asgard, why only Tyr dared to feed him, and how the gods used flattery to bind him with the chains Laeding and Dromi before commissioning the dwarves’ magical Gleipnir. It details Tyr’s sacrifice, the brutal mechanics of Fenrir’s imprisonment with the stones Gjoll and Thviti and a sword through his jaws, his swallowing of Odin at Ragnarok, and his death at the hands of Vidar’s shoe made from discarded leather scraps.

• The Norse concept of fate and why even the gods could not escape prophecy
• Six impossible ingredients in Gleipnir, including the sound of a cat’s footfall and the breath of a fish
• Why Tyr’s oath-swearing right hand symbolizes the death of fair dealing among the gods
• The river Van, meaning hope, formed from the bound wolf’s saliva
• Thorwald’s Cross and the Gosforth Cross as evidence of Christian syncretism, and parallels with the Persian demon Ahriman