My Encounter with the Fenris Wolf

For the first time in my life, I am opening a door to a very private part of myself. It isn’t private because I’ve never spoken of it, but because I’ve never truly owned it. These have always been the "good stories". The terrifying, real spiritual experiences that only surface late at night when the conversation turns deep and the world feels thin.

I choose to tell this story alongside the Fenris Wolf. He was my most recent encounter, but he was certainly not my first.

The Yard and the Carving

In 2025, I found myself finally listening to an audiobook on Norse Mythology while working on a separate painting. That was when the dreams began.

In the first, I was standing in my own backyard—not a dream version of it, but my actual yard, near one of my trees. I was with a tall, immensely intimidating woman. I felt an overwhelming sense of honor to be in her presence, mixed with a sharp, nervous pressure to give her my absolute, undivided attention. I was taking notes, desperate not to blow it. When I woke, my mind went straight to Freya. It was an odd fit; I am spiritual, but I’ve never been one for "aligning" with gods. I put it aside.

A few weeks later, I was back in the yard in another dream. I was on the other side this time, standing by a different tree, physically carving a wolf into the wood. Odin stood next to me. The pressure was suffocating, I felt I had to be the best I could possibly be. As I carved, the wolf would flash and flicker with a golden light, but I couldn't get the whole thing to stay lit. I woke up with that flickering gold burned into my mind. I don’t often dream in color; when I do, it’s a warning or a sign. I felt I was being told, quite literally, to carve the wolf.

The "Puppy"

As I learned the story of Fenrir, it hit me right in the chest. Here was this creature prophesied to be "bad," so the gods discarded him. They raised the pup just to lie to his face and sentence him to indefinite torture. I related to that feeling of being discarded a bit too well.

I fixated on it. I put my other work aside to sketch a Fenrir who was busting out of his chains—a triumphant, empathetic "fuck you" to the gods. I prepped the canvas, resketched him, and went to bed feeling good. I was going to share my empathy for this "little guy" with the world.

I was wrong.

The Predator

That night, I had the first true nightmare I’ve had since childhood. It was a dream that showed me, with haunting clarity, exactly how it feels to realize you are someone’s prey.

I woke in a sweaty panic. When I opened my eyes, there was a massive, black, fractured, swirly mass hovering just two inches from my face. It looked exactly like the background of my Fenris painting, but the colors were all black, spaced out in a fractured, swirling void.

I am a logical woman, a skeptic at heart. I told myself it was a nightmare-induced hallucination. But a minute passed, and it didn't dissipate. I woke my husband and talked to him about unrelated things, trying to maintain a clinical calm, as if showing fear would give the mass permission to harm me. I went to the bathroom, hoping movement would break the spell. It didn't. The mass didn't stay two inches from my face, but it didn't leave, either. It stayed in the doorway, watching, the way a dog waits for its owner.

Finally, the message clicked: This is no puppy. This was an introduction to the wolf I was about to paint. He is not a dog, or even an animal with "sides." He is Jötunn. He is a collection of unformed, raw, predatory energy. To paint him, I had to respect that he is nothing more and nothing less than THE Predator.

The Record

I changed the painting. Out of respect for that raw power, I closed the chains. It is not my job to free him; it is my job to translate the depth of that unfiltered energy exactly as it is.

I spent eight months on that canvas. Throughout that time, the encounters never truly stopped. I saw Odin and the Wolf walking up my front path after my daughter’s bike was stolen. I felt them invading other dreams, their presence so heavy that I would stop dreaming the plot and just observe them. Those glowing eyes became my anchor.

Today, the original Fenris Wolf is a permanent part of my private collection. I feel he is anchored into the canvas itself—put in my home for a reason I don't yet understand. Even now, I cannot take a video of the painting without the chains flickering on the camera.

I am grateful to share this piece, and the oddities that came with it. Whether they were dreams or real encounters, I may never know. But I am left with one specific truth:

Respect the power you choose to awaken.