page_title: Loki
section_title: The arrival of Thor and the bondage of Loki
hierarchical_section_title: Loki / Attestations / Poetic Edda / Lokasenna / The arrival of Thor and the bondage of Loki
caption_attribution_description: Loki leaves the hall and threatens the Æsir with fire, as told in Lokasenna. Thor stands to the right, brandishing his hammer, Mjöllnir.
context_page_description: Loki is a god in Norse mythology. Loki is in some sources the son of Fárbauti and Laufey, and the brother of Helblindi and Býleistr. By the jötunn Angrboða, Loki is the father of Hel, the wolf Fenrir, and the world serpent Jörmungandr. By his wife Sigyn, Loki is the father of Narfi and/or Nari. By the stallion Svaðilfari, Loki is the mother—giving birth in the form of a mare—to the eight-legged horse Sleipnir. In addition, Loki is referred to as the father of Váli in Prose Edda, though this source also refers to Odin as the father of Váli twice, and Váli is found mentioned as a son of Loki only once.
  Loki's relation with the gods varies by source; Loki sometimes assists the gods and sometimes behaves maliciously towards them. Loki is a shape shifter and in separate incidents appears in the form of a salmon, a mare, a fly, and possibly an elderly woman named Þökk. Loki's positive relations with the gods end with his role in engineering the death of the god Baldr, and eventually, Váli binds Loki with the entrails of one of his sons. In both the Poetic Edda and the Prose Edda, the goddess Skaði is responsible for placing a serpent above him while he is bound.
context_section_description: Thor arrives, and tells Loki to be silent, referring to him as an "evil creature", stating that with his hammer Mjöllnir he will silence Loki by hammering his head from his shoulders. Acknowledging that Thor has arrived, Loki asks Thor why he is raging, and says that Thor will not be so bold to fight against the wolf when he swallows Odin at Ragnarök. Thor again tells Loki to be silent, and threatens him with Mjöllnir, adding that he will throw Loki "up on the roads to the east", and thereafter no one will be able to see Loki. Loki states that Thor should never brag of his journeys to the east, claiming that there Thor crouched cowering in the thumb of a glove, mockingly referring to him as a "hero", and adding that such behaviour was unlike Thor. Thor responds by telling Loki to be silent, threatening him with Mjöllnir, and adding that every one of Loki's bones will be broken with it. Loki says he intends to live for a long while yet despite Thor's threats, and taunts Thor about an encounter Thor once had with the Skrýmir (Útgarða-Loki in disguise). Thor again commands Loki to be silent, threatens Loki with Mjöllnir, and says he will send Loki to Hel, below the gates of Nágrind.
  In response to Thor, Loki says that he "spoke before the Æsir", and "before the sons of the Æsir" what his "spirit urged" him to say, yet before Thor alone he will leave, as he knows that Thor does strike. Loki ends the poetic verses of Lokasenna with a final stanza:
  Ale you brewed, Ægir, and you will never again hold a feast;
  
  all your possessions which are here inside—
  
  may flame play over them,
  
  and may your back be burnt!
  Following this final stanza a prose section details that after Loki left the hall, he disguised himself as a salmon and hid in the waterfall of Franangrsfors, where the Æsir caught him. The narrative continues that Loki was bound with the entrails of his son Nari, and his son Narfi changed into a wolf. Skaði fastened a venomous snake over Loki's face, and from it poison dripped. Sigyn, Loki's wife, sat with him holding a basin beneath the dripping venom, yet when the basin became full, she carried the poison away; and during this time the poison dripped on to Loki, causing him to writhe with such violence that all of the earth shook from the force, resulting in what are now known as earthquakes.
caption: Loki threatens the Æsir with fire (1895) by Lorenz Frølich
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "200", "Image YResolution": "200", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS3 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2009:03:16 22:55:47", "Image ExifOffset": "164", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "302", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "5545", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1057", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "567"}