Loki legend collection part 2
Directly follows on from previous post today
same sources and thanks.
(MYTHS OF THE NORSEMEN, H. A. GUERBER)
LOKI: The seeds of evil
Besides the hideous giant Utgard-Loki, the personification of mischief and evil whom Thor and his companions visited in Jötun-heim, the ancient northern nations had another type of sin, whom they called Loki also, and whom we have already seen under many different aspects.
In the beginning, Loki was merely the personification of the hearth fire and of the spirit of life. At first a god, he gradually becomes “god and devil combined,” and ends in being held in general detestation as an exact counterpart of the medieval Lucifer, the prince of lies, “the originator of deceit, and the backbiter” of the Æsir.
By some authorities Loki was aid to be the brother of Odin, but others assert that the two were not related, but had merely gone through the form of swearing blood brotherhood common in the north.
“Odin! Dost thou remember
When we in early days
Blended out blood together?
When to taste beer
Thou did’st constantly refuse
Unless to both ‘twas offered?”
Sæmund’s Edda (Thorp’s tr.)
Loki’s character: While Thor is the embodiment of Northern activity, Loki represents recreation, and the close companionship early established between these two gods shows very plainly how soon our ancestors realized that both were necessary to the welfare of mankind. Thor is ever busy and ever in earnest, but Loki makes fun of everything, until at last his love of mischief leads him entirely astray, and he loses all love for goodness and becomes utterly selfish and malevolent.
He represents evil in the seductive and seemingly beautiful form in which it parades through the world. Because of this deceptive appearance the gods did not at first avoid him, but treated him as one of themselves in all good-fellowship, taking him with them wherever they went, and admitting him not only to their merry-makings, but also to their council hall, where, unfortunately, they too often listened to his advice.
As we have already seen, Loki played a prominent part in the creation of man, endowing him with the power of motion, and causing the blood to circulate freely through his veins, whereby he was inspired with passions. As personification of fire as well as of mischief Loki (lightning) is often seen with Thor (thunder), whom he accompanies to Jötun-heim to recover his hammer, to Utgard-Loki’s castle, and to Geirrod’s house. It is he who steals Freya’s necklace and Sif’s hair, and betrays Idun to the power of Thiassi; and although he sometimes gives the gods good advice and affords them real help, it is only to extricate them from some predicament into which he has rashly inveigled them.
Some authorities declare that, instead of making part of the creative trilogy (Odin, Hoenir and Lodur or Loki), this god originally belonged to a pre-Odinic race of deities and was the son of the great Fornjotnr (Ymir), his brothers being Kari (air) and Hler (water), and his sister Ran, the terrible goddess of the sea. Other mythologies, however make him the son of the giant Farbauti, who has been identified with Bergelmir, the sole survivor of the deluge, and of Laufeia (leafy isle) or Nal (vessel), his mother, thus stating that his connection with Odin was only that of the Northern oath of good-fellowship.
Loki (fire) first married Glut (glow), who bore him tow daughters, Eisa (embers) and Einmyria (ashes); it is therefore very evident that Norsemen considered him emblematic of the hearth-fire, and when the flaming wood crackles on the hearth the goodwives in the North are still wont to say the Loki is beating his children. Besides this wife, Loki is also said to have wedded the giantess Angur-boda (the anguish-boding), who dwelt in Jötun-heim, and who as we have already seen, bore him three monsters: Hel, goddess of death, the Midgard Snake Iörmungandr, and the grim wolf Fenris.
“Loki begat the wolf
With Angur-boda.”
Sæmund’s Edda (Thorp’s tr.)
Sigyn: Loki’s third marriage was with Sigyn, who proved a most loving and devoted wife, and bore him two sons, Narve and Vali, the latter a namesake of the god who avenged Balder. Sigyn was always faithful to her husband, and did not forsake him even after he had defiantly been cast out of Asgard and confined in the bowels of the earth.
As Loki was the embodiment of evil in the minds of the Northern races, they entertained nothing but fear of him, built no temples to his honour, offered no sacrifices to him, and designated the most noxious weeds by his name. the quivering, overheated atmosphere of summer was supposed to betoken his presence, for the people were then wont to remark that Loki was sowing his wild oats, and when the sun appeared to be drawing water they said Loki was drinking.
The story of Loki is so inextricably woven with that of the other gods that most of the myths relating to him have already been told, and there remain but two episodes of his life to relate, one showing his better side before he had degenerated into the arch deceiver, and the other illustrating how he finally induced the gods to defile their peace-steads by willful murder.
Skrymsli and the peasant’s child: a giant and a peasant were playing a game together one day (probably chess, which was a favourite winter pastime with the Northern Vikings. They of course had determined to play for certain stakes, and the giant, being victorious, won the peasants only son, whom he said he would come and claim on the morrow unless the parents could hide him so cleverly that he could not be found.
Knowing that such a feat would be impossible for them to perform. The parents fervently prayed to Odin to help them, and in answer to their entreaties the god came down to earth, and changed the boy into a tiny grain of wheat, which he hid in an ear of grain in the midst of a large field, declaring that the giant would not be able to find him. The giant Skrymsli, however, possessed wisdom far beyond what Odin imagined, and, failing to find the child at home, he strode off immediately to the field with his scythe, and mowing the wheat he selected the [particular ear where the boy was hidden. Counting over the grains of wheat he was about to lay his hands upon the right one when Odin, hearing the child’s cry of distress, snatched the kernel out of the giants hand, and restored the boy to his parents telling them that he had done all in his power to help them. But as the giant vowed he had been cheated, and would again claim the boy on the morrow unless the parents could outwit him, the unfortunate peasants now turned to Hoenir for aid. The god heard them graciously and changed the boy into a fluff of down, which he hid in the breast of a swan swimming in a pond close by. Now, when, a few minutes later, Skrymsli came up, he guessed what had occurred, and seizing the swan, he bit off its neck, and could have swallowed the down had not Hoenir wafted it away from his lips and out of reach, restoring the boy safe and sound to his parents, but telling them that he could not further aid them.
Skrymsli warned the parents that he would make a third attempt to secure the child, whereupon they applied in their despair to Loki, who carried the boy out to sea, and concealed him, as a tiny egg, in the roe of a flounder. Returning from his expedition, Loki encountered the giant near the shore and seeing that he was bent upon a fishing excursion, he insisted upon accompanying him. He felt somewhat uneasy lest the terrible giant should have seen through his device, and therefore thought it would be well for him to be on the spot in case of need. Skrymsli baited his hook, and was more or less successful in his angling, when suddenly he drew up the identical flounder in which Loki had concealed his little charge. Opening the fish upon his knee, the giant proceeded to minutely examine the roe, until he found the egg which he was seeking.
The plight of the boy was certainly perilous, but Loki, watching his chance, snatched the egg out of the giant’s grasp, and transforming it again into the child, he instructed him secretly to rune home, passing through the boathouse on his way and closing the door behind him. The terrified boy did as he was told immediately he found himself on land, and the giant, quick to observe his flight, dashed after him into the boathouse. Now Loki had cunningly placed a sharp spike in such a position that the great head of the giant ran full tilt against it, and he sank to the ground with a groan, whereupon Loki, seeing him helpless, cut off his legs. Imagine the god’s dismay, however, when he saw the pieces join and immediately knit together. But Loki was a master of guile, and recognizing this as the work of magic, he cut off the other leg, promptly throwing flint and steel between the severed limb and trunk, and thereby hindering any further sorcery. The peasants were immensely relieved to find that their enemy was slain, and ever after they considered Loki the mightiest of all the heavenly council, for he had delivered them effectually from their foe, while the other gods had lent only temporary aid.
The giant architect: Notwithstanding their wonderful bridge Bifrost, the tremulous way, and the watchfulness of Heimdall, the gods could not feel entirely secure in Asgard, and were often fearful lest the frost giants should make their way into Asgard. To obviate this possibility, they finally decided to build an impregnable fortress; and while they were planning how this could be don, an unknown architect came with an offer to undertake the construction, provided the gods would give him sun, moon and Freya, goddess of youth and beauty, as reward. The gods were wroth at so presumptuous an offer, but when they would have indignantly driven the stranger from their presence, Loki urged them to make a bargain which it would be impossible for the stranger to keep, and so they finally told the architect that that guerdon should be his, provided the fortress were finished in the course of a single winter. And that he accomplished the work with no other assistance than that of his horse Svadilfare.
“To Asgard came an architect,
And castle offered to erect,--
A castle high
Which should defy
Deep Jotun guile and giant raid;
And this most wily compact made:
Fair Freya, with the moon and sun,
As price the fortress being done.”
Valhalla (J. C. Jones)
The unknown architect agreed to these seemingly impossible conditions, and immediately set to work, hauling ponderous blocks of stone by night, building during the day, and progressing so rapidly that the gods began to feel somewhat anxious. Ere long they noticed that more than half the labour was accomplished by the wonderful steed Svadilfare, and when they saw, near the end of winter, that the work was finished save one portal, which they knew the architect could easily erect during the night:
“Horror and fear the gods beset;
Finished almost the castle stood!
In three days more
The work be o’er;
Then must they make their contract good,
And pay the awful debt.”
Valhalla (J.C. Jones)
Terrified lest they should be called upon to part, not only with the sun and the moon, but also with Freya, the personification of youth and beauty of the world, the gods turned to Loki, and threatened to kill him unless he devised some means of hindering the architect from finishing the work within the specified time.
Loki’s cunning proved once more equal to the situation. He waited until nightfall of the final day, when, as Svadilfare passed the fringe of a forest, painfully dragging one of the great blocks of stone required for the termination of the work, he rushed from a dark glade in the guise of a mare, and neighed so invitingly that, in a trice, the horse kicked himself free of his harness and ran after the mare, closely pursued by his angry master. The mare galloped swiftly on, artfully luring horse and master deeper and deeper into the forest shades, until the night was nearly gone, and it was no longer possible to finish the work. The architect was none other than a redoubtable Hrim-thurs, in disguise, and he now returned to Asgard in a towering rage at the fraud which had been practiced upon him. Assuming his wonted proportions, he would have annihilated the gods had not Thor suddenly returned from a journey and slain him with his magic hammer, Mjolnir, which he hurled with terrific force full in his face.
The gods had saved themselves on the occasions only by fraud and by the violent deed of Thor, and these were destined to bring great sorrow upon them, and eventually to secure their downfall, and to hasten the coming of Ragnarok. Loki, however, felt no remorse for his part, and in due time, it is said, he became the parent of an eight-footed steed called Sleipnir, which as we have seen, was Odin’s favourite mount.
“But Sleipnir he begat
With Svadilfare.”
Lay of Hyndla (Thorpe’s tr.).
Loki performed so many evil deeds during his career that he richly deserved the title of “arch deceiver” which was given him. He was generally hated for his subtle malicious ways, and for an inveterate habit of prevarication which won for him also the title of “prince of lies.”
Loki’s last crime: Loki’s last crime, and the one which filled his measure of iniquity, was to induce Hodur to throw the fatal mistletoe at Balder, whom he hated merely on account of is immaculate purity. Perhaps even this crime might have been condoned had it not been for his obduracy when, in the disguise of the old woman Thok, he was called upon to shed a tear for Balder. His action on this occasion convinced the gods that nothing but evil remained within him, and the pronounced unanimously upon him the sentence of perpetual banishment form Asgard.
Ægir’s banquet: To divert the gods’ sadness and make them, for a short time forget the treachery of Loki and the loss of Balder, Ægir, god of the sea, invited them to partake of a banquet in his coral caves at the bottom of the sea.
“Now, to assuage the high gods’ grief
And bring their mourning some relief,
From coral caves
‘Neath ocean waves,
Mighty King Ægir
Invited the Æsir
To festival
In Hlesey’s hall;
That, tho’ for Balder every guest
Was grieving yet,
He might forget
Awhile his woe in friendly feast.”
Valhalla (J. C. Jones)
The gods gladly accepted the invitation, and clad in their richest garb, and with festive smiles, the appeared in the coral caves a the appointed time. None were absent save the radiant Balder, for whom many a regretful sigh was heaved, and the evil Loki, whom none could regret. In the course of the feast, however, this last-named god appeared in their midst like a dark shadow, and when bidden to depart, he gave vent to his evil passions in a torrent of invective against the gods.
“Of the Æsir and the Alfar
That are here within
Not one has a friendly word for thee.”
Ægir’s compotation, or Loki’s altercation (Thorpe’s tr.)
Then, jealous of the praises which Funfeng, Ægir’s servant, had won for the dexterity with which he waited upon his masters guests, Loki suddenly turned upon him and slew him. At this wanton crime, the gods in fierce wrath drove Loki away once more, threatening him with dire punishment should he ever appear before them again.
Scarcely had the Æsir recovered from this disagreeable interruption to their feast, and resumed their places at the board, when Loki came creeping in once more, resuming his slanders with venomous tongue, and taunting the gods with their weaknesses or shortcomings, dwelling maliciously upon their physical imperfections, and deriding them for their mistakes. In vain the gods tried to stem his abuse; his voice rose louder and louder, and he was just giving utterance to some base slander about Sif, when he was suddenly cut short by the sight of Thor’s hammer, angrily brandished by an arm whose power he knew full well, and he fled incontinently.
“Silence, thou impure being!
My mighty hammer, Miöllnir,
Shall stop the prating.
I will thy head
From they neck strike;
Then will thy life be ended.”
Ægir’s compotation, or Loki’s altercation (Thorpe’s tr.)
The pursuit of Loki: Knowing that he could now have no hope of being admitted into Asgard again, and that sooner of later the gods, seeing the effect of his evil deeds, would regret having permitted him to roam the world, and would try either to bind or slay him, Loki withdrew to the mountains, where he built himself a hut, with four doors which he always left wide open to permit of a hasty escape. Carefully laying his plans, he decided that if the gods should come in search of him he would rush down to the neighboring cataract, according to tradition the Fraananger force or stream, and, changing himself into a salmon, would thus evade his pursuers. He reasoned, however, that although he could easily avoid any hook, it might be difficult for him to effect his escape if the gods should fashion a net like that of the sea-goddess Ran.
Haunted by this fear, he decided to test the possibility of making such a mesh, and started to make one out of twine. He was still engaged upon the task when Odin, Kvasir and Thor suddenly appeared in the distance; and knowing that they had discovered his retreat, Loki threw his half finished net into the fire, and, rushing through one of his ever open doors, he leaped into the waterfall, where, in the shape of a salmon, he hid among some stones in the bed of the stream.
The gods, finding the hut empty, were about to depart, when Kvasir perceived the remains of the burnt net on the hearth. After some thought an inspiration came to him, and he advised the gods to weave a similar implement and use it in searching for their foe in the neighboring stream, since it would be like Loki to choose such a method of baffling their pursuit. This advice seemed good and was immediately followed, and , the net finished, the gods proceeded to drag the stream. Loki eluded the net at it’s first cast by hiding at the river between two stones; and when the gods weighted the mesh and tried a second time, he effected his escape by jumping up stream. A third attempt to secure him proved successful, however, for, as he once more tried to get away with a sudden leap, Thor caught him in mid-air and held him so fast, that he could not escape. The salmon, whose slipperiness is proverbial in the north, is noted for it’s remarkable slim tail, and Norsemen attribute this to Thor’s tight grasp upon his foe.
Loki’s punishment: Loki now suddenly resumed his wonted shape, and his captors dragged him down into a cavern, where they made him fast, using as bonds the entrails of his son Narve, who had been torn to pieces by Vali, his brother, whom the gods had changed into a wolf for the purpose. One of these fetters was passed under Loki’s shoulders, and one under his loins, thereby securing him firmly hand and foot; but the gods, not feeling quite satisfied that the strips, though as enduring though they were, would not give way, changed them into adamant or iron.
“Thee, on a rock’s point,
With the entrails of the ice-cold son,
The gods will bind.”
Sæmund’s Edda (Thorpe’s tr.).
Skadi, the giantess, a personification of the cold mountain stream, who had joyfully watched the fettering of he foe (subterranean fire), now fastened a serpent directly over his head, so that its venom would fall, drop by drop, upon his upturned face. But Sigyn, Loki’s faithful wife, hurried with a cup to his side, and until the day of Ragnarok, she remained by him, catching the drops as the fell, and never leaving her post except when her vessel was full, and she was obliged to empty it. Only during her short absences could the drops of venom fall upon Loki’s face, and then they caused such intense pain that he writhed with anguish, his efforts to get free shaking the earth and producing the earthquakes which so frighten mortals.
“Ere they left him in his anguish,
O’er his treacherous brow, ungrateful,
Skadi hung a serpent hateful,
Venom drops for aye distilling,
Every nerve with torment filling;
Thus shall he in horror languish.
By him, still unwearied kneeling,
Sigyn at his tortured side,--
Faithful wife! With beaker stealing
Drops of venom as the fall,--
Agonizing poison all!
Sleepless, changeless, ever dealing
Comfort, will she still abide;
Only when the cup’s o’er flowing
Must fresh pain and smarting cause,
Swift, to void the beaker going,
Shall she in her watching pause,
Then doth Loki
Loudly cry;
Shrieks of terror,
Groans of horror,
Breaking forth in thunder peals
With his writhings scared Earth reels.
Trembling and quaking,
E’en high heav’n shaking!
So wears he our his awful doom,
Until dread Ragnarok he come.”
Valhalla (J. C. Jones)
In this painful position Loki was destined to remain until the twilight of the gods, when his bonds would be loosed, and he would take part in the fatal conflict on the battlefield of Vigrid, falling at last by the hand of Heimdall, who would be slain at the same time.
As we have seen, the venom-dripping snake in this myth is the cold mountain stream, whose waters, falling from time to time upon subterranean fire, evaporate in steam, which escapes through fissures, and causes earthquakes and geysers, phenomena with which the inhabitants of Iceland, for instance, were very familiar.
Loki’s day: When the gods were reduced to the rank of demons by the introduction of Christianity, Loki was confounded with Saturn, who had also been shorn of his divine attributes, and both were considered the prototypes of Satan. The last day of the week, which was held sacred to Loki, was known in the Norse as Laugardag, or wash-day, but in English it was changed to Saturday, and was said to owe its name not to Saturn but to Sataere, the thief of ambush, and the Teutonic god of agriculture, who is supposed to be merely another personification of Loki.
(GODS AND MYTHS OF NORTHERN EUROPE, H. R. ELLIS DAVIDSON)
LOKI: The place which Loki occupies in the circle as Asgard is as puzzling as that of Heimdall, although he is an even more prominent figure, and plays an important part in most of the well-known myths. Indeed to a reader of Snorri, Loki is perhaps the most outstanding character among the northern gods, the chief actor in the most amusing stories, and the motivating force in a large number of plots. It is he who brings comedy into the realm of the gods, and tragedy into the story of Balder. On the other hand, to a reader of the poems Loki is a vaguer, more powerful and sinister figure. He is evidently an ambivalent character, neither wholly good nor wholly bad, although in Snorri’s tales the bad side predominates. By the late Viking age the wicked and dangerous side of his character seems to have been strengthened by comparison with the Christian Devil. Loki appears in Snorri to have been directly responsible for the death of Balder, but outside Snorri the evidence is slender, and many have thought that the picture of him as Balder’s murderer is a late development die to the gradual blackening of his reputation. This is perhaps the most difficult of the many problems connected with Loki.
A characteristic of Loki, shared by no other gods except Odin and Thor, is his sociability. He has adventures in company with nearly all the important inhabitants of Asgard, Freyr being the exception. He is the companion of Odin and Thor; he fights Heimdall and kills Balder; he plays a part in both the creation and destruction of the world; he helps in the building of Asgard; he is at home among the giants and the monsters as well as the gods. There is no doubt as to his importance in the mythology of the north. Unsuccessful attempts have been made to identify him with the mysterious Lóðurr, who is said to have taken part in the creation of man, but of whom little is known. But it has not been found possible to establish Loki as a major deity who ahs come down in the world of the gods, for there is no evidence of his worship among men, as in the case of Freyr, and Thor, and even Tyr.
Here it is proposed to examine the picture of Loki given in the poems and the myths to see how far it is a consistent one. As to the age and reliability of the various sources in which he is mentioned, more will be said later.
It may be noted that even the Loki of Snorri’s tales is a mischievous rather than a wicked being. Sometimes his actions cause inconvenience and suffering to the gods, as when he helps a giant to steal the apples of immortality, or, in his desire to steal a salmon, kills an otter who has powerful relations to avenge him. Yet on other occasions it is Loki who rescues the gods from serious predicaments, as when he helps to regain Thor’s hammer by dressing him up as a bride. Sometimes Loki acts under compulsion, either because the giants get him into their power or the angry gods insist on his righting some wrong he has done them. There is no doubt however that many of his acts, like the cutting off of Sif’s hair, are the doings of a naughty boy rather than the crimes against the righteous gods. While he is both cunning and ingenious, it may be noted that his plans do not by any means always succeed.
Loki has certain magical powers, and the most outstanding is the ability to change his shape. When the giant was building the walls of Asgard, Loki, turned himself into a mare and lured the away the giants horse which had served him so faithfully. It was while he was in mare’s form, according to Snorri, that Loki gave birth to Sleipnir, Odin’s eight-legged steed. When he was concerned in the theft of the apples, Loki was in bird form. When he went to look for Thor’s hammer, he was said to borrow the ‘”feather-form” of Freyja, which meant flying in the shape of a bird. To prevent the clever dwarfs from winning their wager, he turned himself into a fly and stung the smith at a crucial moment. He is said to have taken the form of a flea when he wanted to steal Freyja’s necklace. One interpretation of a difficult verse in Haustløng implies that Heimdall and Loki fought in the shape of seals, while at the end of Lokasenna he is said to have become a salmon in the river to escape the anger of the gods. According to Snorri, Loki took the form of an old woman to prevent Balder from coming back to Asgard. Finally, as well as giving birth to Sleipnir, he is said to be the father of monsters, and thus to have been responsible for the creation of the wolf Fenrir and the World Serpent, as well as the terrible goddess Hel, the guardian of the realm of death.
In this way, Loki is connected with the darker elements in the northern mythical world, and this tie is at least as early as the skaldic poets of the ninth century. It has been explained by some scholars as a derivation from medieval works on demonology like those of Isadore Seville. We cannot however rule out the possibility that the kennings which link Loki with the monsters are founded on genuine heathen tradition, even though they have a vague general resemblance to learned speculation on the origin of monsters and devils. The binding of Loki may also be an early tradition, although here again it is difficult to be sure how far there has been influence form learned works. Old English accounts of the Genesis story certainly emphasize the binding of the Devil to a surprising extent, and it was a favourite subject for illustrations in Anglo-Saxon manuscripts of the tenth century. This may have been because the idea of a bound giant was already familiar in heathen times. In northern England there are carved stones form the Viking age showing monstrous bound figures, which could be identified with either Satan or Loki. On the Gosforth Cross in particular we have what seems to be a faithful representation of the story of Loki’s binding as told by Snorri. The bound figure is lying in a position where snakes can drop venom on him from above, while a female figure catches it in a bowl to keep it from his face. At Gosforth we have a cross where heathen motifs concerned with the end of the world -- Heimdall’s horn, the killing of the serpent and so on -- appear to have been deliberately chosen because they can be presented in accordance with Christian teaching also, and interpreted as the victory of Christ over the powers of hell, and the coming of the Last Judgment. The fact that the bound figure is found among these suggests that Loki here is equated with the bound Devil of apocalyptic tradition, and that he was therefore familiar to the early converts. Olrik made a detailed study of folklore concerned with the bound giant of the Caucasus region, and while few now would follow his conclusions all the way, he has shown that the idea of the bound giant is a pre-Christian conception, and seems to have existed independently of ideas about the binding of Satan from Christian sources.
Jan de Vries has made a full analysis of the sources in which Loki is mentioned. Many of these are late, and the stories of Loki’s tricks contained in them are likely therefore to be late additions to his character, told for the sake of entertainment. He came to the conclusion that the chief characteristic of Loki likely to go back to earlier myths is his talent as a thief. Again and again he steals or hides the treasures of the gods: the apples of youth, the belt and gloves of Thor, the necklace of Freyja. This side of Loki’s character was certainly familiar to the early poets, while Dumézil would go even further, and trace the conception of Loki as the master thief back to remote antiquity, among the fundamental mythological concepts of the Indo-European peoples.
Attempts have been made from time to time to see in Loki some link with a fire god, on the grounds of the resemblance between his name and Logi, “fire”. there seems however to be little real evidence to support this. When, in Snorri’s tale of Thor’s journey to Utgard, Loki takes part in an eating contest with Logi, this seems to mean no more than that the Norse storyteller was also aware of the superficial resemblance between the two names. Loki does not behave like a fire-spirit, and indeed seems to be as much at home in the water as on the earth, so that some scholars have even tried to see him as a water spirit. Other theories which try to establish Loki as an early god in the Germanic world have not been very successful. In the nineteenth century a charm was recorded by a clergyman from Lincolnshire, who claimed to remember hearing it spoken by an old country woman when he was a boy:
Thrice I smites with Holy Crock
With this mell, I thrice do knock
One for god, and one for Wod,
And one for Lok.
It is tempting to see this as a folk survival of belief in three heathen gods. Thor of the hammer, Woden, and Loki. And some Danish and German Scholars accepted is as such, and built up elaborate theories accordingly. But this isolated scrap of doggerel, which moreover was recorded in at least three different versions by the clergyman in question, is an extremely fragile foundation on which to base assumptions concerning the beliefs of the Danes in Lincolnshire in the ninth century. A verse claimed to have been heard once in boyhood and not recorded until many years later needs corroborating evidence before it can be generally accepted.
Loki, the thief, the deceiver, and the sharp-tongued scandalmonger who outrages the gods and goddesses by his malicious revelations in Lokasenna, yet who nevertheless seems to be accepted as a dweller in Asgard and a companion of the greatest gods, is hard to comprehend. However, it was in view of these queer contradictions in his character that resemblances were pointed out between Loki and the supreme Trickster who plays a great part in the myth and folklore of a number of North American tribes. The trickster is greedy, selfish, and treacherous; he takes on animal form; he appears in comic and often disgusting situations, and yet he may be regarded as a kind of culture hero, who provides mankind with benefits like sunlight and fire. At times he even appears as a creator. He can take both male and female form, and can give birth to children. He is, in fact, a kind of semi-comic shaman, half way between god and hero, yet with a strong dash of the jester element, foreign to both, thrown in. The figure of the trickster was clearly a popular one among storytellers, and tended to attract to himself all sorts of folk-tales.
There is no doubt that this figure bears a resemblance to that of Loki at many points, and particularly at those points which are most difficult to fit in with any other interpretations of his character. Loki seems to have become the hero of many of folk-tales, told for entertainment purposes only, and many of them are late in date; in these he usually plays a comic role. Sometimes the Indian legends about the trickster contain two creator figures, one good and impassive, and the other, the trickster, appearing as a kind of parody of him: a creator whose schemes frequently go awry. Loki as the ambivalent mischief-maker might similarly seem as a kind of Odin-figure in reverse. It is certainly easier to understand some of the puzzling elements in him if we regard him as a parody of the great creator-gods rather than as consistently in opposition to them. Certain elements in the myths and poems suggest that at one time he was a chthonic figure, connected primarily with the world of the dead, and this would be comprehensible if we see him as a kind of shadow of Odin. Besides his links with Hel, the serpent, and the wolf, and with the horse that carries Odin to the realm of the dead, he appears alongside the giants at Ragnarok, steering the ship that brings them over the sea. In Svipdagsmál he is said to have made the magic weapon Laevateinn, “beneath the doors of the dead.”
It is important to remember that there was also a Loki of the outer-region, Utgard-Loki, who dwelt somewhere to the east of the land of the gods, and was visited on one famous occasion by Thor. This Loki is a giant of tremendous size and power, but his power is not really greater than that of Thor; it depends largely on cunning and his capacity to perform sight-deceiving magic that makes things appear other than they are. The straightforward Thor is taken in and humiliated, whereas Odin, we feel, would have been perfectly at home in this bewildering world of sleight and fantasy. Comic fabrication though this story may be, it perhaps contains an element of truth in the way in which Loki the giant is set up against Thor. In a similar story in Saxo, but one presented very differently, travelers penetrate into the realm of a terrible giant, who is lying bound in the midst of darkness, like Loki. This giant lies in a land of cold, corruption and tainted treasures, in fact, in the realm of death itself.
No estimate of Loki can be complete which does not take into account the grim and terrifying background of death to which Loki seems at times to belong. If he were not originally a giant of the underworld, with skill in deceiving and disguise, it is conceivable that he would gradually develop in later literature into the figure of the agile trickster, stirring up mischief and parodying the more dignified gods, and so have won a place of this kind in Snorri’s Asgard. Continually following Odin and Thor, yet mocking them and the goddesses, heh as turned into the hero of a series of diverting, sometimes unseemly stories. Only at Ragnarok is it clear where Loki’s real allegiance lies, when he seems to relapse again into the figure of a bound and monstrous giant, breaking loose to destroy the world. Then the nimble-witted Thersites of the court of the gods is replaced by a remote and terrible power. Concerning his relations with Balder, there will be more to say.
(NORTHERN MAGIC, EDRED THORSSON)
LOKI: He is not fully a god, as he is of the etin-kin, but he is the “blood-brother” of Ódhinn and is the companion of the Æsir. He rules over beauty and deception, cunning and guile. He is the trickster and mischief maker. Loki is powerful in laughter and humor. It is most likely that Loki is but the “shadow side” of the god Ódhinn.
(NORSE MAGIC, D. J. CONWAY)
LOKI: “Father of lies”; the Trickster; Sky-Traveler; Shape-Changer; giant who is the blood-brother of Odhinn; son of the giant Farbauti (Cruel Smiter); married to Sigyn. He handsome, attractive, and free with the ladies. A dangerous god to invoke as one can never be certain how he will answer. Earthquakes, fire, forest fires, cunning, wit, stealth, deceit, mischief, daring, agility, trickery, thieves, revenge, destruction, lecherousness, death, lies, evil, dark magic.
same sources and thanks.
(MYTHS OF THE NORSEMEN, H. A. GUERBER)
LOKI: The seeds of evil
Besides the hideous giant Utgard-Loki, the personification of mischief and evil whom Thor and his companions visited in Jötun-heim, the ancient northern nations had another type of sin, whom they called Loki also, and whom we have already seen under many different aspects.
In the beginning, Loki was merely the personification of the hearth fire and of the spirit of life. At first a god, he gradually becomes “god and devil combined,” and ends in being held in general detestation as an exact counterpart of the medieval Lucifer, the prince of lies, “the originator of deceit, and the backbiter” of the Æsir.
By some authorities Loki was aid to be the brother of Odin, but others assert that the two were not related, but had merely gone through the form of swearing blood brotherhood common in the north.
“Odin! Dost thou remember
When we in early days
Blended out blood together?
When to taste beer
Thou did’st constantly refuse
Unless to both ‘twas offered?”
Sæmund’s Edda (Thorp’s tr.)
Loki’s character: While Thor is the embodiment of Northern activity, Loki represents recreation, and the close companionship early established between these two gods shows very plainly how soon our ancestors realized that both were necessary to the welfare of mankind. Thor is ever busy and ever in earnest, but Loki makes fun of everything, until at last his love of mischief leads him entirely astray, and he loses all love for goodness and becomes utterly selfish and malevolent.
He represents evil in the seductive and seemingly beautiful form in which it parades through the world. Because of this deceptive appearance the gods did not at first avoid him, but treated him as one of themselves in all good-fellowship, taking him with them wherever they went, and admitting him not only to their merry-makings, but also to their council hall, where, unfortunately, they too often listened to his advice.
As we have already seen, Loki played a prominent part in the creation of man, endowing him with the power of motion, and causing the blood to circulate freely through his veins, whereby he was inspired with passions. As personification of fire as well as of mischief Loki (lightning) is often seen with Thor (thunder), whom he accompanies to Jötun-heim to recover his hammer, to Utgard-Loki’s castle, and to Geirrod’s house. It is he who steals Freya’s necklace and Sif’s hair, and betrays Idun to the power of Thiassi; and although he sometimes gives the gods good advice and affords them real help, it is only to extricate them from some predicament into which he has rashly inveigled them.
Some authorities declare that, instead of making part of the creative trilogy (Odin, Hoenir and Lodur or Loki), this god originally belonged to a pre-Odinic race of deities and was the son of the great Fornjotnr (Ymir), his brothers being Kari (air) and Hler (water), and his sister Ran, the terrible goddess of the sea. Other mythologies, however make him the son of the giant Farbauti, who has been identified with Bergelmir, the sole survivor of the deluge, and of Laufeia (leafy isle) or Nal (vessel), his mother, thus stating that his connection with Odin was only that of the Northern oath of good-fellowship.
Loki (fire) first married Glut (glow), who bore him tow daughters, Eisa (embers) and Einmyria (ashes); it is therefore very evident that Norsemen considered him emblematic of the hearth-fire, and when the flaming wood crackles on the hearth the goodwives in the North are still wont to say the Loki is beating his children. Besides this wife, Loki is also said to have wedded the giantess Angur-boda (the anguish-boding), who dwelt in Jötun-heim, and who as we have already seen, bore him three monsters: Hel, goddess of death, the Midgard Snake Iörmungandr, and the grim wolf Fenris.
“Loki begat the wolf
With Angur-boda.”
Sæmund’s Edda (Thorp’s tr.)
Sigyn: Loki’s third marriage was with Sigyn, who proved a most loving and devoted wife, and bore him two sons, Narve and Vali, the latter a namesake of the god who avenged Balder. Sigyn was always faithful to her husband, and did not forsake him even after he had defiantly been cast out of Asgard and confined in the bowels of the earth.
As Loki was the embodiment of evil in the minds of the Northern races, they entertained nothing but fear of him, built no temples to his honour, offered no sacrifices to him, and designated the most noxious weeds by his name. the quivering, overheated atmosphere of summer was supposed to betoken his presence, for the people were then wont to remark that Loki was sowing his wild oats, and when the sun appeared to be drawing water they said Loki was drinking.
The story of Loki is so inextricably woven with that of the other gods that most of the myths relating to him have already been told, and there remain but two episodes of his life to relate, one showing his better side before he had degenerated into the arch deceiver, and the other illustrating how he finally induced the gods to defile their peace-steads by willful murder.
Skrymsli and the peasant’s child: a giant and a peasant were playing a game together one day (probably chess, which was a favourite winter pastime with the Northern Vikings. They of course had determined to play for certain stakes, and the giant, being victorious, won the peasants only son, whom he said he would come and claim on the morrow unless the parents could hide him so cleverly that he could not be found.
Knowing that such a feat would be impossible for them to perform. The parents fervently prayed to Odin to help them, and in answer to their entreaties the god came down to earth, and changed the boy into a tiny grain of wheat, which he hid in an ear of grain in the midst of a large field, declaring that the giant would not be able to find him. The giant Skrymsli, however, possessed wisdom far beyond what Odin imagined, and, failing to find the child at home, he strode off immediately to the field with his scythe, and mowing the wheat he selected the [particular ear where the boy was hidden. Counting over the grains of wheat he was about to lay his hands upon the right one when Odin, hearing the child’s cry of distress, snatched the kernel out of the giants hand, and restored the boy to his parents telling them that he had done all in his power to help them. But as the giant vowed he had been cheated, and would again claim the boy on the morrow unless the parents could outwit him, the unfortunate peasants now turned to Hoenir for aid. The god heard them graciously and changed the boy into a fluff of down, which he hid in the breast of a swan swimming in a pond close by. Now, when, a few minutes later, Skrymsli came up, he guessed what had occurred, and seizing the swan, he bit off its neck, and could have swallowed the down had not Hoenir wafted it away from his lips and out of reach, restoring the boy safe and sound to his parents, but telling them that he could not further aid them.
Skrymsli warned the parents that he would make a third attempt to secure the child, whereupon they applied in their despair to Loki, who carried the boy out to sea, and concealed him, as a tiny egg, in the roe of a flounder. Returning from his expedition, Loki encountered the giant near the shore and seeing that he was bent upon a fishing excursion, he insisted upon accompanying him. He felt somewhat uneasy lest the terrible giant should have seen through his device, and therefore thought it would be well for him to be on the spot in case of need. Skrymsli baited his hook, and was more or less successful in his angling, when suddenly he drew up the identical flounder in which Loki had concealed his little charge. Opening the fish upon his knee, the giant proceeded to minutely examine the roe, until he found the egg which he was seeking.
The plight of the boy was certainly perilous, but Loki, watching his chance, snatched the egg out of the giant’s grasp, and transforming it again into the child, he instructed him secretly to rune home, passing through the boathouse on his way and closing the door behind him. The terrified boy did as he was told immediately he found himself on land, and the giant, quick to observe his flight, dashed after him into the boathouse. Now Loki had cunningly placed a sharp spike in such a position that the great head of the giant ran full tilt against it, and he sank to the ground with a groan, whereupon Loki, seeing him helpless, cut off his legs. Imagine the god’s dismay, however, when he saw the pieces join and immediately knit together. But Loki was a master of guile, and recognizing this as the work of magic, he cut off the other leg, promptly throwing flint and steel between the severed limb and trunk, and thereby hindering any further sorcery. The peasants were immensely relieved to find that their enemy was slain, and ever after they considered Loki the mightiest of all the heavenly council, for he had delivered them effectually from their foe, while the other gods had lent only temporary aid.
The giant architect: Notwithstanding their wonderful bridge Bifrost, the tremulous way, and the watchfulness of Heimdall, the gods could not feel entirely secure in Asgard, and were often fearful lest the frost giants should make their way into Asgard. To obviate this possibility, they finally decided to build an impregnable fortress; and while they were planning how this could be don, an unknown architect came with an offer to undertake the construction, provided the gods would give him sun, moon and Freya, goddess of youth and beauty, as reward. The gods were wroth at so presumptuous an offer, but when they would have indignantly driven the stranger from their presence, Loki urged them to make a bargain which it would be impossible for the stranger to keep, and so they finally told the architect that that guerdon should be his, provided the fortress were finished in the course of a single winter. And that he accomplished the work with no other assistance than that of his horse Svadilfare.
“To Asgard came an architect,
And castle offered to erect,--
A castle high
Which should defy
Deep Jotun guile and giant raid;
And this most wily compact made:
Fair Freya, with the moon and sun,
As price the fortress being done.”
Valhalla (J. C. Jones)
The unknown architect agreed to these seemingly impossible conditions, and immediately set to work, hauling ponderous blocks of stone by night, building during the day, and progressing so rapidly that the gods began to feel somewhat anxious. Ere long they noticed that more than half the labour was accomplished by the wonderful steed Svadilfare, and when they saw, near the end of winter, that the work was finished save one portal, which they knew the architect could easily erect during the night:
“Horror and fear the gods beset;
Finished almost the castle stood!
In three days more
The work be o’er;
Then must they make their contract good,
And pay the awful debt.”
Valhalla (J.C. Jones)
Terrified lest they should be called upon to part, not only with the sun and the moon, but also with Freya, the personification of youth and beauty of the world, the gods turned to Loki, and threatened to kill him unless he devised some means of hindering the architect from finishing the work within the specified time.
Loki’s cunning proved once more equal to the situation. He waited until nightfall of the final day, when, as Svadilfare passed the fringe of a forest, painfully dragging one of the great blocks of stone required for the termination of the work, he rushed from a dark glade in the guise of a mare, and neighed so invitingly that, in a trice, the horse kicked himself free of his harness and ran after the mare, closely pursued by his angry master. The mare galloped swiftly on, artfully luring horse and master deeper and deeper into the forest shades, until the night was nearly gone, and it was no longer possible to finish the work. The architect was none other than a redoubtable Hrim-thurs, in disguise, and he now returned to Asgard in a towering rage at the fraud which had been practiced upon him. Assuming his wonted proportions, he would have annihilated the gods had not Thor suddenly returned from a journey and slain him with his magic hammer, Mjolnir, which he hurled with terrific force full in his face.
The gods had saved themselves on the occasions only by fraud and by the violent deed of Thor, and these were destined to bring great sorrow upon them, and eventually to secure their downfall, and to hasten the coming of Ragnarok. Loki, however, felt no remorse for his part, and in due time, it is said, he became the parent of an eight-footed steed called Sleipnir, which as we have seen, was Odin’s favourite mount.
“But Sleipnir he begat
With Svadilfare.”
Lay of Hyndla (Thorpe’s tr.).
Loki performed so many evil deeds during his career that he richly deserved the title of “arch deceiver” which was given him. He was generally hated for his subtle malicious ways, and for an inveterate habit of prevarication which won for him also the title of “prince of lies.”
Loki’s last crime: Loki’s last crime, and the one which filled his measure of iniquity, was to induce Hodur to throw the fatal mistletoe at Balder, whom he hated merely on account of is immaculate purity. Perhaps even this crime might have been condoned had it not been for his obduracy when, in the disguise of the old woman Thok, he was called upon to shed a tear for Balder. His action on this occasion convinced the gods that nothing but evil remained within him, and the pronounced unanimously upon him the sentence of perpetual banishment form Asgard.
Ægir’s banquet: To divert the gods’ sadness and make them, for a short time forget the treachery of Loki and the loss of Balder, Ægir, god of the sea, invited them to partake of a banquet in his coral caves at the bottom of the sea.
“Now, to assuage the high gods’ grief
And bring their mourning some relief,
From coral caves
‘Neath ocean waves,
Mighty King Ægir
Invited the Æsir
To festival
In Hlesey’s hall;
That, tho’ for Balder every guest
Was grieving yet,
He might forget
Awhile his woe in friendly feast.”
Valhalla (J. C. Jones)
The gods gladly accepted the invitation, and clad in their richest garb, and with festive smiles, the appeared in the coral caves a the appointed time. None were absent save the radiant Balder, for whom many a regretful sigh was heaved, and the evil Loki, whom none could regret. In the course of the feast, however, this last-named god appeared in their midst like a dark shadow, and when bidden to depart, he gave vent to his evil passions in a torrent of invective against the gods.
“Of the Æsir and the Alfar
That are here within
Not one has a friendly word for thee.”
Ægir’s compotation, or Loki’s altercation (Thorpe’s tr.)
Then, jealous of the praises which Funfeng, Ægir’s servant, had won for the dexterity with which he waited upon his masters guests, Loki suddenly turned upon him and slew him. At this wanton crime, the gods in fierce wrath drove Loki away once more, threatening him with dire punishment should he ever appear before them again.
Scarcely had the Æsir recovered from this disagreeable interruption to their feast, and resumed their places at the board, when Loki came creeping in once more, resuming his slanders with venomous tongue, and taunting the gods with their weaknesses or shortcomings, dwelling maliciously upon their physical imperfections, and deriding them for their mistakes. In vain the gods tried to stem his abuse; his voice rose louder and louder, and he was just giving utterance to some base slander about Sif, when he was suddenly cut short by the sight of Thor’s hammer, angrily brandished by an arm whose power he knew full well, and he fled incontinently.
“Silence, thou impure being!
My mighty hammer, Miöllnir,
Shall stop the prating.
I will thy head
From they neck strike;
Then will thy life be ended.”
Ægir’s compotation, or Loki’s altercation (Thorpe’s tr.)
The pursuit of Loki: Knowing that he could now have no hope of being admitted into Asgard again, and that sooner of later the gods, seeing the effect of his evil deeds, would regret having permitted him to roam the world, and would try either to bind or slay him, Loki withdrew to the mountains, where he built himself a hut, with four doors which he always left wide open to permit of a hasty escape. Carefully laying his plans, he decided that if the gods should come in search of him he would rush down to the neighboring cataract, according to tradition the Fraananger force or stream, and, changing himself into a salmon, would thus evade his pursuers. He reasoned, however, that although he could easily avoid any hook, it might be difficult for him to effect his escape if the gods should fashion a net like that of the sea-goddess Ran.
Haunted by this fear, he decided to test the possibility of making such a mesh, and started to make one out of twine. He was still engaged upon the task when Odin, Kvasir and Thor suddenly appeared in the distance; and knowing that they had discovered his retreat, Loki threw his half finished net into the fire, and, rushing through one of his ever open doors, he leaped into the waterfall, where, in the shape of a salmon, he hid among some stones in the bed of the stream.
The gods, finding the hut empty, were about to depart, when Kvasir perceived the remains of the burnt net on the hearth. After some thought an inspiration came to him, and he advised the gods to weave a similar implement and use it in searching for their foe in the neighboring stream, since it would be like Loki to choose such a method of baffling their pursuit. This advice seemed good and was immediately followed, and , the net finished, the gods proceeded to drag the stream. Loki eluded the net at it’s first cast by hiding at the river between two stones; and when the gods weighted the mesh and tried a second time, he effected his escape by jumping up stream. A third attempt to secure him proved successful, however, for, as he once more tried to get away with a sudden leap, Thor caught him in mid-air and held him so fast, that he could not escape. The salmon, whose slipperiness is proverbial in the north, is noted for it’s remarkable slim tail, and Norsemen attribute this to Thor’s tight grasp upon his foe.
Loki’s punishment: Loki now suddenly resumed his wonted shape, and his captors dragged him down into a cavern, where they made him fast, using as bonds the entrails of his son Narve, who had been torn to pieces by Vali, his brother, whom the gods had changed into a wolf for the purpose. One of these fetters was passed under Loki’s shoulders, and one under his loins, thereby securing him firmly hand and foot; but the gods, not feeling quite satisfied that the strips, though as enduring though they were, would not give way, changed them into adamant or iron.
“Thee, on a rock’s point,
With the entrails of the ice-cold son,
The gods will bind.”
Sæmund’s Edda (Thorpe’s tr.).
Skadi, the giantess, a personification of the cold mountain stream, who had joyfully watched the fettering of he foe (subterranean fire), now fastened a serpent directly over his head, so that its venom would fall, drop by drop, upon his upturned face. But Sigyn, Loki’s faithful wife, hurried with a cup to his side, and until the day of Ragnarok, she remained by him, catching the drops as the fell, and never leaving her post except when her vessel was full, and she was obliged to empty it. Only during her short absences could the drops of venom fall upon Loki’s face, and then they caused such intense pain that he writhed with anguish, his efforts to get free shaking the earth and producing the earthquakes which so frighten mortals.
“Ere they left him in his anguish,
O’er his treacherous brow, ungrateful,
Skadi hung a serpent hateful,
Venom drops for aye distilling,
Every nerve with torment filling;
Thus shall he in horror languish.
By him, still unwearied kneeling,
Sigyn at his tortured side,--
Faithful wife! With beaker stealing
Drops of venom as the fall,--
Agonizing poison all!
Sleepless, changeless, ever dealing
Comfort, will she still abide;
Only when the cup’s o’er flowing
Must fresh pain and smarting cause,
Swift, to void the beaker going,
Shall she in her watching pause,
Then doth Loki
Loudly cry;
Shrieks of terror,
Groans of horror,
Breaking forth in thunder peals
With his writhings scared Earth reels.
Trembling and quaking,
E’en high heav’n shaking!
So wears he our his awful doom,
Until dread Ragnarok he come.”
Valhalla (J. C. Jones)
In this painful position Loki was destined to remain until the twilight of the gods, when his bonds would be loosed, and he would take part in the fatal conflict on the battlefield of Vigrid, falling at last by the hand of Heimdall, who would be slain at the same time.
As we have seen, the venom-dripping snake in this myth is the cold mountain stream, whose waters, falling from time to time upon subterranean fire, evaporate in steam, which escapes through fissures, and causes earthquakes and geysers, phenomena with which the inhabitants of Iceland, for instance, were very familiar.
Loki’s day: When the gods were reduced to the rank of demons by the introduction of Christianity, Loki was confounded with Saturn, who had also been shorn of his divine attributes, and both were considered the prototypes of Satan. The last day of the week, which was held sacred to Loki, was known in the Norse as Laugardag, or wash-day, but in English it was changed to Saturday, and was said to owe its name not to Saturn but to Sataere, the thief of ambush, and the Teutonic god of agriculture, who is supposed to be merely another personification of Loki.
(GODS AND MYTHS OF NORTHERN EUROPE, H. R. ELLIS DAVIDSON)
LOKI: The place which Loki occupies in the circle as Asgard is as puzzling as that of Heimdall, although he is an even more prominent figure, and plays an important part in most of the well-known myths. Indeed to a reader of Snorri, Loki is perhaps the most outstanding character among the northern gods, the chief actor in the most amusing stories, and the motivating force in a large number of plots. It is he who brings comedy into the realm of the gods, and tragedy into the story of Balder. On the other hand, to a reader of the poems Loki is a vaguer, more powerful and sinister figure. He is evidently an ambivalent character, neither wholly good nor wholly bad, although in Snorri’s tales the bad side predominates. By the late Viking age the wicked and dangerous side of his character seems to have been strengthened by comparison with the Christian Devil. Loki appears in Snorri to have been directly responsible for the death of Balder, but outside Snorri the evidence is slender, and many have thought that the picture of him as Balder’s murderer is a late development die to the gradual blackening of his reputation. This is perhaps the most difficult of the many problems connected with Loki.
A characteristic of Loki, shared by no other gods except Odin and Thor, is his sociability. He has adventures in company with nearly all the important inhabitants of Asgard, Freyr being the exception. He is the companion of Odin and Thor; he fights Heimdall and kills Balder; he plays a part in both the creation and destruction of the world; he helps in the building of Asgard; he is at home among the giants and the monsters as well as the gods. There is no doubt as to his importance in the mythology of the north. Unsuccessful attempts have been made to identify him with the mysterious Lóðurr, who is said to have taken part in the creation of man, but of whom little is known. But it has not been found possible to establish Loki as a major deity who ahs come down in the world of the gods, for there is no evidence of his worship among men, as in the case of Freyr, and Thor, and even Tyr.
Here it is proposed to examine the picture of Loki given in the poems and the myths to see how far it is a consistent one. As to the age and reliability of the various sources in which he is mentioned, more will be said later.
It may be noted that even the Loki of Snorri’s tales is a mischievous rather than a wicked being. Sometimes his actions cause inconvenience and suffering to the gods, as when he helps a giant to steal the apples of immortality, or, in his desire to steal a salmon, kills an otter who has powerful relations to avenge him. Yet on other occasions it is Loki who rescues the gods from serious predicaments, as when he helps to regain Thor’s hammer by dressing him up as a bride. Sometimes Loki acts under compulsion, either because the giants get him into their power or the angry gods insist on his righting some wrong he has done them. There is no doubt however that many of his acts, like the cutting off of Sif’s hair, are the doings of a naughty boy rather than the crimes against the righteous gods. While he is both cunning and ingenious, it may be noted that his plans do not by any means always succeed.
Loki has certain magical powers, and the most outstanding is the ability to change his shape. When the giant was building the walls of Asgard, Loki, turned himself into a mare and lured the away the giants horse which had served him so faithfully. It was while he was in mare’s form, according to Snorri, that Loki gave birth to Sleipnir, Odin’s eight-legged steed. When he was concerned in the theft of the apples, Loki was in bird form. When he went to look for Thor’s hammer, he was said to borrow the ‘”feather-form” of Freyja, which meant flying in the shape of a bird. To prevent the clever dwarfs from winning their wager, he turned himself into a fly and stung the smith at a crucial moment. He is said to have taken the form of a flea when he wanted to steal Freyja’s necklace. One interpretation of a difficult verse in Haustløng implies that Heimdall and Loki fought in the shape of seals, while at the end of Lokasenna he is said to have become a salmon in the river to escape the anger of the gods. According to Snorri, Loki took the form of an old woman to prevent Balder from coming back to Asgard. Finally, as well as giving birth to Sleipnir, he is said to be the father of monsters, and thus to have been responsible for the creation of the wolf Fenrir and the World Serpent, as well as the terrible goddess Hel, the guardian of the realm of death.
In this way, Loki is connected with the darker elements in the northern mythical world, and this tie is at least as early as the skaldic poets of the ninth century. It has been explained by some scholars as a derivation from medieval works on demonology like those of Isadore Seville. We cannot however rule out the possibility that the kennings which link Loki with the monsters are founded on genuine heathen tradition, even though they have a vague general resemblance to learned speculation on the origin of monsters and devils. The binding of Loki may also be an early tradition, although here again it is difficult to be sure how far there has been influence form learned works. Old English accounts of the Genesis story certainly emphasize the binding of the Devil to a surprising extent, and it was a favourite subject for illustrations in Anglo-Saxon manuscripts of the tenth century. This may have been because the idea of a bound giant was already familiar in heathen times. In northern England there are carved stones form the Viking age showing monstrous bound figures, which could be identified with either Satan or Loki. On the Gosforth Cross in particular we have what seems to be a faithful representation of the story of Loki’s binding as told by Snorri. The bound figure is lying in a position where snakes can drop venom on him from above, while a female figure catches it in a bowl to keep it from his face. At Gosforth we have a cross where heathen motifs concerned with the end of the world -- Heimdall’s horn, the killing of the serpent and so on -- appear to have been deliberately chosen because they can be presented in accordance with Christian teaching also, and interpreted as the victory of Christ over the powers of hell, and the coming of the Last Judgment. The fact that the bound figure is found among these suggests that Loki here is equated with the bound Devil of apocalyptic tradition, and that he was therefore familiar to the early converts. Olrik made a detailed study of folklore concerned with the bound giant of the Caucasus region, and while few now would follow his conclusions all the way, he has shown that the idea of the bound giant is a pre-Christian conception, and seems to have existed independently of ideas about the binding of Satan from Christian sources.
Jan de Vries has made a full analysis of the sources in which Loki is mentioned. Many of these are late, and the stories of Loki’s tricks contained in them are likely therefore to be late additions to his character, told for the sake of entertainment. He came to the conclusion that the chief characteristic of Loki likely to go back to earlier myths is his talent as a thief. Again and again he steals or hides the treasures of the gods: the apples of youth, the belt and gloves of Thor, the necklace of Freyja. This side of Loki’s character was certainly familiar to the early poets, while Dumézil would go even further, and trace the conception of Loki as the master thief back to remote antiquity, among the fundamental mythological concepts of the Indo-European peoples.
Attempts have been made from time to time to see in Loki some link with a fire god, on the grounds of the resemblance between his name and Logi, “fire”. there seems however to be little real evidence to support this. When, in Snorri’s tale of Thor’s journey to Utgard, Loki takes part in an eating contest with Logi, this seems to mean no more than that the Norse storyteller was also aware of the superficial resemblance between the two names. Loki does not behave like a fire-spirit, and indeed seems to be as much at home in the water as on the earth, so that some scholars have even tried to see him as a water spirit. Other theories which try to establish Loki as an early god in the Germanic world have not been very successful. In the nineteenth century a charm was recorded by a clergyman from Lincolnshire, who claimed to remember hearing it spoken by an old country woman when he was a boy:
Thrice I smites with Holy Crock
With this mell, I thrice do knock
One for god, and one for Wod,
And one for Lok.
It is tempting to see this as a folk survival of belief in three heathen gods. Thor of the hammer, Woden, and Loki. And some Danish and German Scholars accepted is as such, and built up elaborate theories accordingly. But this isolated scrap of doggerel, which moreover was recorded in at least three different versions by the clergyman in question, is an extremely fragile foundation on which to base assumptions concerning the beliefs of the Danes in Lincolnshire in the ninth century. A verse claimed to have been heard once in boyhood and not recorded until many years later needs corroborating evidence before it can be generally accepted.
Loki, the thief, the deceiver, and the sharp-tongued scandalmonger who outrages the gods and goddesses by his malicious revelations in Lokasenna, yet who nevertheless seems to be accepted as a dweller in Asgard and a companion of the greatest gods, is hard to comprehend. However, it was in view of these queer contradictions in his character that resemblances were pointed out between Loki and the supreme Trickster who plays a great part in the myth and folklore of a number of North American tribes. The trickster is greedy, selfish, and treacherous; he takes on animal form; he appears in comic and often disgusting situations, and yet he may be regarded as a kind of culture hero, who provides mankind with benefits like sunlight and fire. At times he even appears as a creator. He can take both male and female form, and can give birth to children. He is, in fact, a kind of semi-comic shaman, half way between god and hero, yet with a strong dash of the jester element, foreign to both, thrown in. The figure of the trickster was clearly a popular one among storytellers, and tended to attract to himself all sorts of folk-tales.
There is no doubt that this figure bears a resemblance to that of Loki at many points, and particularly at those points which are most difficult to fit in with any other interpretations of his character. Loki seems to have become the hero of many of folk-tales, told for entertainment purposes only, and many of them are late in date; in these he usually plays a comic role. Sometimes the Indian legends about the trickster contain two creator figures, one good and impassive, and the other, the trickster, appearing as a kind of parody of him: a creator whose schemes frequently go awry. Loki as the ambivalent mischief-maker might similarly seem as a kind of Odin-figure in reverse. It is certainly easier to understand some of the puzzling elements in him if we regard him as a parody of the great creator-gods rather than as consistently in opposition to them. Certain elements in the myths and poems suggest that at one time he was a chthonic figure, connected primarily with the world of the dead, and this would be comprehensible if we see him as a kind of shadow of Odin. Besides his links with Hel, the serpent, and the wolf, and with the horse that carries Odin to the realm of the dead, he appears alongside the giants at Ragnarok, steering the ship that brings them over the sea. In Svipdagsmál he is said to have made the magic weapon Laevateinn, “beneath the doors of the dead.”
It is important to remember that there was also a Loki of the outer-region, Utgard-Loki, who dwelt somewhere to the east of the land of the gods, and was visited on one famous occasion by Thor. This Loki is a giant of tremendous size and power, but his power is not really greater than that of Thor; it depends largely on cunning and his capacity to perform sight-deceiving magic that makes things appear other than they are. The straightforward Thor is taken in and humiliated, whereas Odin, we feel, would have been perfectly at home in this bewildering world of sleight and fantasy. Comic fabrication though this story may be, it perhaps contains an element of truth in the way in which Loki the giant is set up against Thor. In a similar story in Saxo, but one presented very differently, travelers penetrate into the realm of a terrible giant, who is lying bound in the midst of darkness, like Loki. This giant lies in a land of cold, corruption and tainted treasures, in fact, in the realm of death itself.
No estimate of Loki can be complete which does not take into account the grim and terrifying background of death to which Loki seems at times to belong. If he were not originally a giant of the underworld, with skill in deceiving and disguise, it is conceivable that he would gradually develop in later literature into the figure of the agile trickster, stirring up mischief and parodying the more dignified gods, and so have won a place of this kind in Snorri’s Asgard. Continually following Odin and Thor, yet mocking them and the goddesses, heh as turned into the hero of a series of diverting, sometimes unseemly stories. Only at Ragnarok is it clear where Loki’s real allegiance lies, when he seems to relapse again into the figure of a bound and monstrous giant, breaking loose to destroy the world. Then the nimble-witted Thersites of the court of the gods is replaced by a remote and terrible power. Concerning his relations with Balder, there will be more to say.
(NORTHERN MAGIC, EDRED THORSSON)
LOKI: He is not fully a god, as he is of the etin-kin, but he is the “blood-brother” of Ódhinn and is the companion of the Æsir. He rules over beauty and deception, cunning and guile. He is the trickster and mischief maker. Loki is powerful in laughter and humor. It is most likely that Loki is but the “shadow side” of the god Ódhinn.
(NORSE MAGIC, D. J. CONWAY)
LOKI: “Father of lies”; the Trickster; Sky-Traveler; Shape-Changer; giant who is the blood-brother of Odhinn; son of the giant Farbauti (Cruel Smiter); married to Sigyn. He handsome, attractive, and free with the ladies. A dangerous god to invoke as one can never be certain how he will answer. Earthquakes, fire, forest fires, cunning, wit, stealth, deceit, mischief, daring, agility, trickery, thieves, revenge, destruction, lecherousness, death, lies, evil, dark magic.