Send Skirnir

Thus he struck himself out of Dromi. Since then it
has been used as a saying to loose from Leyding or strike out of
Dromi when something is achieved with great effort. After this the
Æsir began to fear that they would not manage to get the wolf
bound. Then All-father sent some one called Skirnir, Freyr’s
messenger, down into the world of black-elves to some dwarfs
and had a fetter called Gleipnir made. It was made of six ingredients:
the sound of the cat’s footfall and the woman’s beard,
the mountain’s roots and the bear’s sinews and the fish’s breath
and bird’s spittle. And even if you did not know this information
before, you can now discover true proofs that you are not being
deceived in the following: you must have seen that a woman has
no beard and there is no noise from a cat’s running and there are
no roots under a mountain, and I declare now by my faith that
everything I have told you is just as true even if there are some
things that you cannot test.’

Then spoke Gangleri: ‘I can indeed see that this is true. I can
understand the things that you have given as proofs, but what was
the fetter made like?’

High said: ‘I can easily tell you that. The fetter was smooth and
soft like a silken ribbon, but as firm and strong as you shall now
hear. When the fetter was brought to the Æsir, they thanked the
messenger heartily for carrying out their errand. Then the Æsir
went out on to a lake called Amsvartnir, onto an island called
Lyngvi, and summoned with them the wolf, showed him the silky
band and bade him tear it and declared it was rather firmer than
seemed likely, judging from its thickness, and passed it to each
other and tried it by pulling at it with their hands, and it did not
tear; yet the wolf, they said, would tear it.


- Prose Edda, Gylfaginning