Gleipnir: To Bind the Wolf -- An alliterative poem about the binding of Fenrir

...then the Æsir began to fear they might never be able to get The Wolf bound.  Then All-Father sent down to Swartelfhame to some dwarves and had made the fetter that is called Gleipnir. It was made of six ingredients: of the noise of the cat's footfall and of the beard of a woman and of the roots of rocky mountains and of the sinews of a bear and of the breath of a fish and of a fowl's spittle. The fetter was soft and smooth as a silken ribbon. 

Then the Æsir showed Fenrir the silky band and bade him tear it, saying that it was rather tougher than might seem likely. 

The Wolf answered: ‘It seems to me that I shall get no glory from ripping asunder such a flimsy ribbon, but if it be fashioned with craftiness and wiles, then, though it seem little, that band is never coming near my feet.’ 

Then the Æsir said that he would soon tear asunder such a slight silky lace, he who had before broken great fetters of iron. 

The Wolf said: ‘I am not eager that this binding should be laid upon me. Yet rather than that you should question my courage, let some one of you place his hand in my mouth as a pledge that this is done in good faith.’ 

Týr reached out his right hand and put it in The Wolf's mouth. And when The Wolf kicked, then the band hardened; and the harder he struggled, the tighter the band. Then all laughed save Týr. He’d lost his hand. Thus lies The Wolf till The Doom of the Gods...

—Snorri, Gylfaginning, 34

A leash locked by black-elves.They laced it, penned Fenririn winding  wires, slenderwebbing milky-silken.Gauze gossamer-tissued;gods and monster ponder:was soft-seeming weftagesecretly no weakness?

—foot-fall of a kitten     founding roots of mountains—

Twirls were twined and strandedof twisted cords, listedas subtly-sired mettlessourced like smelted ore-veins;wisps removed, inwoven,from world-kingdom thinghood:unlikely lode-makingsin linked chains were tinctured.

—the hive-hunter’s nervures     hairs sheared from the beardless—

What fish breathe. From featheredfinches their beak-gleekings;bears' bent to be fearful(Bruin’s now no coward);the roots whence rocks sprouted;rumble of cat’s tumbling;barbered beards from maidens,bristly wives, and sisters.

—the foam of fowls’ droolings
     finny-scaled’s inhalings—

They forge, finely-spinningthis far-gathered harvest,stilling steamy cullingsto stuff girt with virtues:suchlike simples temperseething alloy-wreathing;meld in strange amalgamon the murk-elves’ furnace.

—foot-fall of a kitten     founding roots of mountains—

Like dust of dream thistle-
down as plaited matter,spliced in skeins of spindriftwhose spume waxes flaxen;pith of pallid æther'spuffball iron-toughened;as motes tugged by magnetsmuster snaky clusters;

—the hive-hunter’s nervures     hairs sheared from the beardless—

from dew-vapour dropletsdawning forges hoarfrost;fossil amber forms asfir-trees spectral nectar;molten magma coolingto make schist and crystal:thus whimsied whiffs bloomingto whip-lashing tripwires.

—the foam of fowls’ droolings     finny-scaled’s inhalings—

Husks of hazes fusinghatch for Garm an armoured,glossy slipknot: Gleipnir—a glamour elves hammered? 
—Spun spellbinding, runicspider-staves; their slavingmore on mental bondagethan on metal-cast fetters?

—foot-fall of a kitten     founding roots of mountains—

Could gods game for riddlesbe beguiled so slyly?Tether-teased-from-nothings’trammel none can damage:if noughts cipher network,the nexus so textured’swebbing warped of absence,wefted sheer of zero.

—the hive-hunter’s nervures     hairs sheared from the beardless—

The worse the warg struggles,the witch-thongs get stronger—till Doom dusks, then Time’s up;dwarven artists’ barteredcantrip cost them plentyand crammed that maw: lawlessTroth’s token of oathplight;Týr’s shamed, noble, maiming.

—toes of tabby drubbing     taproots mountains shoot from     bushy beards from ladies     a bill’s dribble-spillage     from gills, bubble-gulpings     the grizzly’s fear-wisdom     an unsoothfast swordhand’s     slaughtered, mainsworn, mortmain—

Forgotten Ground Regained

Gleipnir: To Bind the Wolf

Rahul Gupta