FENRIS WOLF

1st appearance: Journey Into Mystery #114

History:  The Fenris Wolf is a creature of the Asgardian dimension who is said to be an offspring of Loki and the giant Angrboda.  It is a huge wolf (usual height 15 feet tall) with human-like intelligence, vast strength and the capacity to change its shape to that of a god or to change its size to that of a real wolf.  Before it reached maturity, Fenris threatened Iduna, keeper of the gods' golden apples of immortality, and was banished to Varinheim by Haakun the Hunter.  This incident later became the basis for the fairy tale of Little Red Riding Hood.  Just as Fenris reached maturity, the Asgardian gods decided it would be unsafe to allow Fenris to roam the land unfettered.  They took to playing a game with the wolf to see how easily he could snap the bonds they put on him.   Each time they forged a thicker and stronger chain of iron, but Fenris broke them all.  Finally Odin commanded a dwarf toe forge an enchanted fetter.  The dwarf did so, creating a thin, silklike substance of phenomenal durability called Gleipnir.   When the gods entreated Fenris to try to break this binding, the wolf-god sensed that the fragile-looking substance was a trick.  Fenris agreed to let him put the bonds around him only if there was a god willing to put his hand in the wolf's mouth as a gesture of trust.  If the bonds did probe to be unbreakable, Fenris would bite.   Among the gods assembled for this task, only Tyr, the courageous god of war, was willing to make such a sacrifice.  he placed his right hand between the wolf's huge fangs as the bonds were put in place, and when Fenris learned that the more he struggled, the tighter the bonds were drawn, he bit off Tyr's hand.  The gods then bound Fenris to a rock where he has been kept to this day.  It is prophesied that when Ragnarok, the twilight of the Asgardian gods, occurs, Fenris will devour Odin.