The gate of the year

Engraved stone stele with runic inscriptions, found at Ledberg, Östergötland, Sweden, and dating back to the XI century. The images seem to refer to the final phase of the Ragnarök, the ultimate fight which in Germanic mythology would oppose the gods against the forces of disorder: in particular the moment in which the huge wolf Fenrir is about to devour the god Odin.
In Norse mythology, the god Loki had intercourse with the giantess Angrboda (“She who offers sorrows”), who gave birth to a monstrous offspring: the serpent Jörmundgand, which surrounds the earth with its body, the goddess Hel, Lady of the Underworld and of the dead, and the huge wolf Fenrir, an animal extremely dangerous for the gods’ safety. The latter, for defending themselves, were able to immobilize the wolf, that could break every binding, with a magical fetter. Also the sun and the moon were menaced by wolves, generated in the world of the Giants, that pursued the two heavenly bodies: “A hag dwells eastward of Midgard, in the wood called Iárnvidhiur. In that wood abide those witches called Iárnvidhiur, the old hag brought forth many giant sons, and all in wolf’s likeness; and thence sprung these wolves [those pursuing the sun and the moon]” (Snorri, Gylfaginning, 12).
At the end of the world, the destruction of the cosmos and of the gods (Ragnarök, the “Judgment of the Powers”, interpreted by Wagner as the “Twilight of the Gods”) shall begin when “the wolf swallows the sun, and men think that great moan; then takes the other wolf the Moon, and he too maketh great harm; the stars are hurled from heaven” (Snorri, Gylfaginning, 51). The wolf Fenrir shall be freed as well, spreading havoc and destruction: during the battle that shall burst out between the gods and the powers of disorder, the wolf shall devour the god Odin, marking in this way the end of the gods and of the world.
In Irish mythology, the wolf was particularly associated with the possibilities of shape-shifting, or metamorphoses: some people, who were deemed descended by wolves, were able to turn themselves into these animals, and, in this shape, assault their neighbors’ cattle. Still in XII century, Giraldus Cambrensis, a Welsh cleric, described an Irish family who turned into wolves every seventh year, because of a curse (Monaghan 2004).

[Image: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fenris_Ledbergsstenen_20041231.jpg]




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Engraved stone stele with runic inscriptions, found at Ledberg, Östergötland, Sweden, and dating back to the XI century. The images seem to refer to the final phase of the Ragnarök, the ultimate fight which in Germanic mythology would oppose the gods against the forces of disorder: in particular the moment in which the huge wolf Fenrir is about to devour the god Odin. In Norse mythology, the god Loki had intercourse with the giantess Angrboda (“She who offers sorrows”), who gave birth to a monstrous offspring: the serpent Jörmundgand, which surrounds the earth with its body, the goddess Hel, Lady of the Underworld and of the dead, and the huge wolf Fenrir, an animal extremely dangerous for the gods’ safety. The latter, for defending themselves, were able to immobilize the wolf, that could break every binding, with a magical fetter. Also the sun and the moon were menaced by wolves, generated in the world of the Giants, that pursued the two heavenly bodies: “A hag dwells eastward of Midgard, in the wood called Iárnvidhiur. In that wood abide those witches called Iárnvidhiur, the old hag brought forth many giant sons, and all in wolf’s likeness; and thence sprung these wolves [those pursuing the sun and the moon]” (Snorri, Gylfaginning, 12). At the end of the world, the destruction of the cosmos and of the gods (Ragnarök, the “Judgment of the Powers”, interpreted by Wagner as the “Twilight of the Gods”) shall begin when “the wolf swallows the sun, and men think that great moan; then takes the other wolf the Moon, and he too maketh great harm; the stars are hurled from heaven” (Snorri, Gylfaginning, 51). The wolf Fenrir shall be freed as well, spreading havoc and destruction: during the battle that shall burst out between the gods and the powers of disorder, the wolf shall devour the god Odin, marking in this way the end of the gods and of the world. In Irish mythology, the wolf was particularly associated with the possibilities of shape-shifting, or metamorphoses: some people, who were deemed descended by wolves, were able to turn themselves into these animals, and, in this shape, assault their neighbors’ cattle. Still in XII century, Giraldus Cambrensis, a Welsh cleric, described an Irish family who turned into wolves every seventh year, because of a curse (Monaghan 2004). [Image: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fenris_Ledbergsstenen_20041231.jpg]