How Tyr lost his hand
Published: Tue, 07/02/13
We all make mistakes, even Odin, well misjudgments about how things
are going to work out in the future. When Loki sneaked off and
lived with a giantess called Angabora (meaning 'bringer of
anguish' the clue was in the name) for a time three strange
children were produced. A serpent, a girl who was half alive and
half dead and a wolf-cub. Odin threw the serpent into the sea
where it grew so large it encircled the world and could bite its
own tail. The girl, Hel Odin sent straight to the underworld where
she became queen of the dead. So far so good, but the wolf cub,
named Fenrir, Odin brought back to Aesgard as a kind of pet. Its
father was the trickster, its mother called 'bringer of
anguish', not the best pedigree but I expect Odin thought he
could manage a wolf having already kept two of his own called Geri
and Freki, but these were normal wolves. Fenrir turned out to be a
very different creature, for one thing he grew huge and aggressive
and for another he could talk.
There came a point when it just wasn't possible for the Aseir
to tolerate the monster living in Aesgard any more and he had to be
got rid of. Thor offered to simply kill the beast with his hammer
molinjor but Fenrir was there as an invited guest and besides,
since Loki was Odin's blood brother, Fenrir was technically
family. So simple murder wasn't considered an acceptable
solution.
Instead it was decided to lure the monster wolf far away, chain him
up and just leave him there. Not nice, but not actually murder.
The only problem was that the wolf was smart enough to know that
something unpleasant was planned for him and he refused to
cooperate with being chained up. To cut a long story short Tyr had
to tell Fenrir that if he allowed himself to be chained up Tyr
would put his hand in the Wolf's mouth and would not take it
out until Fenrir was released again. There was of course no
intention to release the wolf so Fenrir had no compensation beyond
biting off Tyr's hand. Not a small matter for a warrior to
lose his sword hand. Hence the first line of the rune poem
'Tyr is the one handed amongst the Aesir'.
If you are interested in reading about the rune poems in more
detail you can get David Stone's booklet of commentary on the
rune poems at http://www.iceandfire.org.uk/lit.html or download the
ebook version imeadiately at http://www.iceandfire.org.uk/elit.html