Loki
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Loki or Loke is a god or giant in Norse mythology. The 13th century Icelandic Poetic Edda and Prose Edda, two of the very few sources of information regarding the figure, inconsistently place him among the Æsir, as his blood-brotherhood makes him a member of Odin's family. Although frequently mentioned in 13th century Icelandic sources, it is generally believed by scholars that it is unlikely that Loki was ever worshipped.[1]
In the Eddas, Loki is described as a son of Fárbauti and in the Prose Edda as also a son of Laufey.[2] Loki also had two brothers (Helbindi & Byleist) of whom nothing is known. Loki is introduced in the Prose Edda as the "contriver of all fraud". Tales regarding Loki in these sources often feature Loki mixing freely with the gods for a long time, even becoming Odin's blood brother before arranging the accidental murder of Baldr by Höðr in the Prose Edda book Gylfaginning. After Baldr's death, the Æsir restrain Loki with the entrails of his son Narfi. He is eventually freed and fights alongside the Jotun against the forces of the Æsir at Ragnarök.
Loki is not to be confused with the similarly named Útgarða-Loki, a king of the giants in Jötunheimr.
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[edit] Eddic depictions
Most information regarding Loki that we have today has been extracted from two Icelandic sources dating from after their Christianization: the Prose Edda, written in the 13th century by Snorri Sturluson and the Poetic Edda, compiled in the 13 century from earlier sources.
[edit] Names
Like other deities in the Eddas, Loki is described with many names: Lie-Smith, Sly-God, Shape-Changer, Sly-One, Foxy-One, Lopt, Sky Traveler, Sky Walker and Wizard Of Lies among others.
[edit] Nature
Loki is an adept shape-shifter, with the ability to change both form (examples include transmogrification to a salmon, horse etc.) and sex (he turned into a woman to trick Frigg to learn Baldr's weakness). But he had to borrow Freyja's cloak whenever he wanted to change into bird form.
In the Eddic depictions Loki mainly plays the role of a villain: a coward (when he was captured by a giant, he begged for his life and promised to give him the goddess Idun), liar (in Lokasenna, all gods called him a liar), cheater (he tricked Idun into being captured by the giant and only went to save her when threatened by the gods), thief (he stole Sif's hair and stole various things from the giants; he also stole Freyja's necklace and got beaten by Heimdall who was sent by Freyja to get the necklace back[3]), and as a murderer (he killed the god Baldur by tricking his blind brother Höðr into using a projectile made of mistletoe).
In Lokasenna, Odin relates what seems to be a lost story about how Loki spent eight years milking a cow like a maid.
- Loki:
- "Be silent, Odin! Not justly thou settest
- The fate of the fight among men;
- Oft gavst thou to him who deserved not the gift,
- To the baser, the battle's prize."
- Odin:
- "Though I gave to him who deserved not the gift,
- To the baser, the battle's prize;
- Winters eight wast thou under the earth,
- Milking the cows as a maid,
- Ay, and babes didst thou bear;
- Unmanly thy soul must seem."
[edit] Children
Loki was the father (and, in more than one instance, the mother) of many beasts, humans and monsters.
Relationships with giantesses is nothing unusual for gods in Norse mythology; Odin, Thor, Njörðr, Freyr are good examples; and since Loki was actually a giant himself, there is nothing unusual about this activity. Together with Angrboda, he had three children:
- Fenrir the giant wolf preordained to slay Odin at the time of Ragnarök;
- Jörmungandr, the great sea serpent;
- Hel, ruler of the realm of the dead.
Loki also married a goddess named Sigyn who bore him two sons: Narfi and Vali. (This Vali is not to be confused with Odin's son with the giantess Rind and sometimes his name is Nari). To punish Loki for his part in Baldr's death, Odin turned Vali into a rabid wolf who proceeded to tear Narfi's throat out. Narfi's entrails were used to chain Loki to a large rock until Ragnarok.
While he was in the form of a mare Loki mated with the stallion Svadilfari and gave birth to Sleipnir, the eight-legged steed of Odin. One story in Hyndluljóð states that Loki ate the heart of a woman and proceeded to give birth to a monster whose name is not given.
[edit] Cooperation with the gods
Loki occasionally works with the other gods and goddesses. For example, he tricked the unnamed giant who built the walls around Asgard out of being paid for his work by distracting his horse while disguised as a mare—thereby he became the mother of Odin's eight-legged horse Sleipnir (although Loki is the one who gave ill advice to the gods in the first place).
In another myth, after Thor threatened to crush all his bones for cutting off Sif's hair, Loki pits the dwarves against each other in a gifting contest. The dwarves make Odin's spear, Freyr's ship and Sif's new hair. He even rescues Iðunn after he gave her to a giant, but only after being cornered and threatened with death by the gods. Finally, in Þrymskviða, Loki manages, with Thor at his side, to retrieve Mjolnir after the giant Þrymr secretly steals it, in order to ask for Freyja as a bride in exchange.
Even though Loki may have been a liability to gods (leading to the death of Baldr, the birth of Fenrir and other monsters that would eventually engulf the world), his pranks ultimately provided the gods with all their most precious items, from Thor's hammer to the flying ships.
[edit] Slayer of Baldr
Disguised as a giantess, Loki arranged the murder of Baldr. He used mistletoe, the only plant which had not sworn never to harm Baldr (in some versions it was deemed unimportant and harmless, and in others it was deemed too young to make an oath), and made a dart of it, which he tricked Baldr's blind brother Höðr into throwing at Baldr, thereby killing him. Another version of the myth, preserved in Gesta Danorum, does not mention Loki.
Loki, in the shape of a witch with stained black teeth Þökk, was the only being that refused to weep for Baldr, preventing the defunct god's return from Hel. After refusing to weep for Baldr, Loki (in the form of Þökk) stepped into a cave, and immediately after changed shape into a raven.
[edit] Binding and Ragnarök
The murder of Baldr was not left unpunished, and eventually the gods tracked down Loki, who was hiding in a pool at the base of Franang's Falls in the shape of a salmon. There they caught Loki with a fishing net. They also hunted down Loki's two children with Sigyn, Narfi and Váli (not to be confused with Váli, the son of Odin and Rind). They changed Váli into a wolf, and he then turned against his brother and killed him. They used Narfi's entrails to bind Loki to three slabs of stone, and Skaði placed a snake above his head so that its venom would pour onto him. Sigyn sits beside him and collects the venom in a wooden bowl, but she has to empty the bowl when it fills up, during which time the searing venom drips onto Loki's face. The pain is then so terrible that he writhes, making the earth shake.
Baldr's murder was also one of the events that precipitated Ragnarök. Loki would stay bound until then. When Ragnarök finally comes and Loki is freed by the trembling earth, he will sail to Vigrid from the north on a ship that also bears Hel and all those from her realm. Once on the battlefield, he will meet Heimdall. They will fight and though Heimdall is ultimately victorious, Heimdall later dies of his wounds.
[edit] Norwegian rune poem
In the 13th century Norwegian rune poem, Loki is mentioned in a paragraph in relation to the Younger Futhark rune Bjarkan:
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[edit] Loka Táttur
Not all lore depicts Loki as a malevolent being. An 18th century ballad (that may have drawn from a much earlier source) from the Faroe Islands, entitled Loka Táttur (The Loki's Tale ballad),[5] depicts Loki as a friend to man: when a thurs (troll or giant) comes to take a farmer's son away, the farmer and his wife pray to Odin to protect him. Odin hides the son in a field of wheat, but the thurs finds him. Odin rescues the son and takes him back to the farmer and his wife, saying that he is done hiding the son.
The couple then pray to Hœnir, who hides the son in the neck-feathers of a swan, but again the thurs finds him. On the third day, they pray to Loki, who hides the son amidst the eggs of a flounder. The thurs finds the flounder, but Loki instructs the boy to run into a boathouse. The giant gets his head caught and Loki kills him by chopping off his leg and inserting a stick and a stone in the leg stump to prevent the thurs from regenerating. He takes the boy home, and the farmer and his wife embrace both of them.
[edit] Archaeological record
Two known depictions of Loki have survived into modern times.
[edit] Kirkby Stephen stone
A 10th century depiction that is often interpreted as Loki exists in the parish church of Kirkby Stephen, England. The figure is bound with irons and horned. The legendary character Loki is presumed to have been brought to England by Norse settlers in the region. Before the stone was found, it was used as a building stone. [6]
[edit] Snaptun stone
On a spring day in 1950, a semi-circular flat hearth stone bearing a depiction of Loki was discovered on a beach near Snaptun, Denmark.[7] Made of soap stone, the depiction was carved around the year 1,000 CE. The depiction features a curled mustache. The figure is identified as Loki due to the seemingly scarred lips, a reference to a story recorded in Skáldskaparmál.[7] The stone is on display at the Moesgaard Museum near Aarhus, Denmark and a copy at the Aarhus city Viking Museum.
[edit] Other spellings
- Common Danish, Swedish and Norwegian form: Loke
- German form: Lohho, Loge (Wagner)
[edit] Modern age
The composer Richard Wagner presented Loki under an invented Germanized name Loge in his opera Das Rheingold. Loge is also mentioned, but does not appear as a character, in Die Walküre and Götterdämmerung. The name comes from the common mistranslation and confusion with Logi, a fire-giant. Since Wagner's time, Loki has appeared, either as himself or as the namesake of characters, in comic books, on television, in literature and in song lyrics.
[edit] References
- ^ From page XXI of Jesse Byock's Introduction to his 2005 translation of The Prose Edda.
- ^ Crossley-Holland, Kevin (1980). The Norse Myths. Pantheon Books. ISBN 0394500482.
- ^ The Prose Edda, Skáldskaparmál (8&16); Húsdrápa.
- ^ Dan Bray translation. Available online through the Northvegr Foundation website: [1]
- ^ An online version of the tale can be found via the Northvegr Foundation here: [2]
- ^ Long, Peter. Gerrard, Peter. (2003) The Hidden Places of the Lake District and Cumbria, page 180. Travel Publishing Ltd ISBN 90200793X
- ^ a b Margrethe, Queen, Poul Kjrum, Rikke Agnete Olsen. Oldtidens Ansigt: Faces of the Past (1990), ISBN 9788774682745
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