Loki

**Loki** was the trickster son of Fárbauti, a jötunn (giant), and Laufey, a lesser known god and is the blood-brother of Odin.

## Miscellaneous Myths

### Children of Ragnarök

Together with the jötunn Angrboða, Loki sired three children: Jormungandr, Fenrir, and Hel. Soon after their birth, when the gods noticed that Asgard had been peaceful without Loki's mischief for too long to be normal, they took the children from their mother's hall in the woods and were taken before Odin. With his prophetic powers, Odin noticed that the three would one day became the banes of the Norse gods, and thus decided to separate them for the better.

He ordered Thor to throw Jörmungandr into the Earth's ocean and used magic ensure that the jötunn was bound there, forever stuck within the form of a sea serpent, and never return to his parents' side.

The Fenris Wolf, Odin's fated bane, he was given to Tyr for raising until a proper prison could be crafted, though Odin had secretly wished to find a way to make him loyal to him, similar to his older brother Sleipnir. This wish of him, however, turned out to be fruitless, as outside of Tyr and Baldr and Hodr, he would be violent and vicious to any other god, especially Odin. According to the words of Fenrir himself, it was because outside of these three gods, none of them ever saw him more than a violent beast, and thus he had no intention to be anything else before them. He would too later be imprisoned on the island of Lyngvi and bound by the silken fetter Gleipnir.

And finally, with Hel, he ordered Heimdallr to take the young girl to the realm of Helheim where the "unworthy" dead dwells, a realm filled with freezing winds and baneful curses.

### The Short Völuspa

According to the two stanzas in *Völuspá hin skamma*, found within the poem *Hyndluljóð*, one day, Loki found a half-cooked heart of an unknown woman, presumedly an ogress, roasted on a linden-wood fire, and ate it. Afterward, he was impregnated by the woman's wickedness and later on gave birth to the "evils that plague men".

### Building Asgard's Walls

This tale happens "right at the beginning of the gods' settlement, when the gods at established Midgard and built Val-Hall". It involves an unnamed builder who has offered to build a fortification for the gods that will keep out invaders in exchange for the goddess Freyja, the sun, and the moon. After some debate, the gods agree to these conditions, but place a number of restrictions on the builder, including that he must complete the work within three seasons without the help of any man. The builder makes a single request; that he may have help from his stallion Svaðilfari, and due to Loki's influence, this is allowed. The stallion Svaðilfari performs twice the deeds of strength as the builder, and hauls enormous rocks—to the surprise of the gods. The builder, with Svaðilfari, makes fast progress on the wall, and three days before the deadline of summer, the builder is nearly at the entrance to the fortification. The gods convene, and figure out who is responsible, resulting in a unanimous agreement that, along with most trouble, Loki is to blame.

The gods declare that Loki deserves a horrible death if he cannot find a scheme that will cause the builder to forfeit his payment, and threaten to attack him. Loki, afraid, swears oaths that he will devise a scheme to cause the builder to forfeit the payment, whatever it may cost himself. That night, the builder drives out to fetch stone with his stallion Svaðilfari, and out from a wood runs a mare. The mare neighs at Svaðilfari, and "realizing what kind of horse it was", Svaðilfari becomes frantic, neighs, tears apart his tackle, and runs towards the mare. The mare runs to the wood, Svaðilfari follows, and the builder chases after. The two horses run around all night, causing the building to be halted and the builder is then unable to regain the previous momentum of his work.

The builder goes into a rage, and when the Æsir realize that the builder is a hrimthurs, they disregard their previous oaths with the builder, and call for Thor. Thor arrives, and subsequently kills the builder by smashing the builder's skull into shards with the hammer Mjöllnir. However, Loki "had such dealings" with Svaðilfari that "somewhat later" Loki gives birth to a gray foal with eight legs; the horse Sleipnir—"the best horse among gods and men."

### Death of Baldr

His tricks came to an end after causing the death of Baldr. After drunkenly revealing that he was the cause for Baldr's death, the gods chased Loki with a terrible vengeance. After Loki left the hall, he disguised himself as a salmon and hid in the waterfall of Franangrsfors, where the Æsir caught him. His wife Sigyn, and his two sons, Narfi and Váli, were led to a cavern under a "grove of hot springs", where he would be imprisoned for his crime of killing Baldr.

Odin then turned Váli into a vicious wolf and ordered him to rip his brother, Narfi, apart, all the while forcing Loki and Sigyn to watch one their son kill the other. Afterward, Váli killed the wolf and with his and Narfi's entrails, the gods bound Loki to a smooth slab of stone where Loki would never be able to use his wits to escape from. Skadi then fastened a venomous serpent over his face, and from it.

A serpent drips venom from above him that his wife Sigyn collects into a bowl. However, Sigyn must empty the bowl when it is full, and the venom that drips in the meantime causes Loki to writhe in pain, thereby causing earthquakes. With the onset of Ragnarök, Loki is foretold to slip free from his bonds and to fight against the gods among the forces of the jötnar, at which time he will encounter the god Heimdallr and the two will slay each other.

## Gallery

Red's illustration of the strange nature and lore surrounding Loki