Where does the name come from?
It’s not uncommon for barges to have been given several names throughout their long lives, and it was no surprise to us that Fenrir has had other names in her past life. We were however intrigued to find out more...
When we purchased Fenrir, we had been content to stick with the name that we had been introduced to her with... after all, this was her name when we first met. We had known a possible previous name “Golfzang”, translating happily as “Song of the Waves”, but there was limited evidence around for that to feel terribly real.
But a chance contact with one of her early owners has added a great amount of information. After various research, it had become apparent that Fenrir was just one of several names she had been given. Prior to being “Golfzang” she had been called ‘Time is Money’, almost certainly a working name. Perhaps most importantly, she had been first called ‘Agatha’.
Finding this out made us question the existing name... should we have returned Fenrir to a previous name? Indeed, perhaps we should have given her a new name? We concluded that Fenrir was the name we had always known, and it seemed that the time for such things had passed. Besides, I’d already had the name made up ready to go on the bow and stern!
Anyway, why the name Fenrir? Well, we believe the previous owner had a wolf prominently displayed on their family ‘crest’ and Fenrir was a ‘famous’ mythical wolf... unfortunately one with anger management issues!
The story is certainly a strange one... Apparently, the Gods were getting a bit fed up of Fenrir, and his unruly behaviour, but not even they could tame the beast. The Gods tried to tie him down, but this was not successful, and finally they could take no more. They called in the experts.
Unfortunately, the only experts available were Dwarfs, but they showed that mind always beats matter by successfully entrapping Fenrir with a magic chain, but not before he’d chewed the hand off “Tyr”, the one God brave enough to feed him.
So imagine our fear every time we prepare our ropes! Fenrir is not one to be tied down.
A rather unpleasant depiction of Fenrir, the wolf...
Dazzle your friends with amazing knot puzzles