God

Loki

The trickster of the gods, their helper and their undoing

The trickster of Norse myth: a shape-changer of giant birth who lives among the gods as Odin's blood-brother, gets them into trouble and out of it again. Many of their treasures come through him, Thor's hammer, Odin's spear and the eight-legged horse Sleipnir, which he bore himself as a mare. But he is also the father of their worst enemies, the wolf Fenrir, the Midgard Serpent and Hel, and in Snorri's telling it is he who contrives the death of Baldr. The gods bind him under the earth with the guts of his own son; at Ragnarök he breaks free and comes against them with the giants.

Role: Trickster, shape-changer; to Snorri, “the originator of deceit, the disgrace of all gods and men”
Shapes: Mare, fly, falcon, seal, salmon, woman; in Lokasenna Odin adds a milking cow, and a woman who bore children
Other names: Loptr, Hvedrung; he is also named after his mother, as Laufey's son
Parents: Fárbauti and Laufey; a giant father; the mother is also called Nál
Punishment: Bound on three stones under a snake; Sigyn catches the venom in a bowl; when she empties it he writhes and the earth shakes
Worship: None known; no place names, altars or offerings; he lives only in the stories

Family

Parents

Fárbauti Snorri, Gylfaginning 33

a giant; the name may mean “cruel striker”
Laufey Snorri, Gylfaginning 33; Thrymskvida

also called Nál; the poems call Loki “Laufey's son”

Sworn brother

Odin Lokasenna 9

Odin swore never to drink unless Loki was served too

Wife

Sigyn Snorri, Gylfaginning 33, 50; Völuspá 35

stays by him in his bonds

Lover

Angrboda Snorri, Gylfaginning 34; Hyndluljód

a giantess in Jötunheim, mother of the three monsters

Children

Fenrir Snorri, Gylfaginning 34

of Angrboda; the wolf that will swallow Odin
The Midgard Serpent Snorri, Gylfaginning 34

of Angrboda; thrown into the sea, it grew until it circled the earth
Hel Snorri, Gylfaginning 34

of Angrboda; queen of those who die of sickness and age
Sleipnir Snorri, Gylfaginning 42; Hyndluljód

borne by Loki himself, as a mare, to the stallion Svadilfari
Váli and Nari Snorri, Gylfaginning 50

of Sigyn; the gods turned Váli into a wolf, he tore his brother apart, and Loki was bound with the guts
Nari and Narfi Lokasenna, closing prose

here Narfi became the wolf; the guts that bound Loki were Nari's

Victim

Baldr Snorri, Gylfaginning 49; Lokasenna 28

Loki guided the mistletoe, and later boasted of it to Frigg

Enemy

Heimdall Snorri, Skáldskaparmál; Gylfaginning 51

they fought as seals over Brísingamen and will kill each other at Ragnarök

His stories

1
The builder's stallion

A giant in disguise offered to build the gods a wall, asking Freyja, the sun and the moon as his wage. The gods gave him a single winter and, on Loki's advice, let him use his stallion Svadilfari, which did most of the work: with three days left the wall was nearly done. The gods threatened Loki with death, so he turned himself into a mare and led the stallion off into the woods; the wall was not finished, and some time later Loki gave birth to Sleipnir.

Snorri, Gylfaginning 42; Völuspá 25–26 recalls the broken oaths
2
Sif's hair and the treasures

Loki cut off the hair of Thor's wife Sif, and to save himself had dwarfs make her new hair of gold, with a ship for Freyr and a spear for Odin. He then wagered his head that the dwarf Brokk's brother could not do better; the brother made a golden boar, the ring Draupnir and the hammer Mjöllnir, although Loki, as a fly, stung Brokk at the bellows. Loki lost, but argued that the dwarf could have his head and not his neck, so Brokk sewed his lips together instead.

Snorri, Skáldskaparmál; the thong Brokk used was called Vartari
3
Idun's apples

Caught by the giant Thjazi in the shape of an eagle, Loki bought his freedom by promising to bring him Idun and her apples of youth. Without them the gods grew grey and old, and made Loki fetch her back: he flew to Thjazi's house in Freyja's falcon shape, turned Idun into a nut and carried her home in his claws, with the eagle behind him, until it flew into a fire the gods had lit on their walls.

Snorri, Skáldskaparmál; told earlier in Thjódólf of Hvinir's Haustlöng, about 900
4
The flyting and the binding

At a feast in the hall of the sea-giant Ægir, Loki killed a servant, was driven out, came back and insulted every god and goddess in turn, charging them with cowardice, incest and adultery, until Thor came home and threatened him with the hammer. Loki fled and hid as a salmon in a waterfall; the gods caught him in a net and bound him in a cave with the guts of his son.

Lokasenna and its closing prose; Snorri, Gylfaginning 50, where Thor catches the salmon by the tail, which is why salmon taper behind

Among the gods

A giant's son in Asgard

Loki is the son of the giant Fárbauti, yet Snorri counts him among the Æsir, and in the myths he lives with them, travels with Thor and drinks at their feasts. Lokasenna says why: in the beginning of days he and Odin mixed their blood, and Odin swore never to drink unless Loki was served as well. Snorri describes him as handsome and fair to look at, evil in character and very changeable in his ways, with a cunning beyond anyone's.

His stories follow a pattern. He gets the gods into trouble, they threaten him, and he gets them out again, usually by changing shape. He cuts off Sif's hair and comes back with the gods' best treasures; he hands Idun to a giant and brings her home as a nut in a falcon's claws; he advises a bad bargain with a giant builder and escapes it by becoming a mare. The gods need him as much as they fear him: without Loki there would be no Mjöllnir, no Gungnir and no Sleipnir.

The father of monsters

Fenrir, the Serpent, Hel and Baldr

With the giantess Angrboda in Jötunheim Loki had three children, and the gods, warned that great harm would come of them, had them brought to Asgard. Odin threw the Serpent into the sea, where it grew until it circled the earth, and sent Hel down to Niflheim to rule over the dead. The wolf Fenrir the gods raised themselves, until he grew too big and they bound him with a fetter made by dwarfs; Týr paid for it with his hand, lost in the wolf's jaws.

Then Loki turns from mischief to murder. In Snorri's telling it is he who learns from Frigg that the mistletoe alone has sworn no oath to spare Baldr, and he who puts it into the hand of blind Höd. When Hel offers to release Baldr if everything in the world weeps for him, a giantess named Thökk refuses, and people think, says Snorri, that she was Loki.

Bound until the end

Sigyn, the venom and Ragnarök

The gods caught him at last as a salmon in a waterfall and bound him in a cave, across three stones set on edge, with the guts of his own son. Skadi hung a snake above his face; his wife Sigyn stands beside him holding a bowl under the venom, and when she goes to empty it the drops fall on him and he writhes so hard that the earth shakes. The seeress of Völuspá sees him there:

A captive she saw lying under the grove of hot springs, in shape like harm-loving Loki; there sits Sigyn, taking little joy in her husband.

— *Völuspá* 35

At Ragnarök he breaks loose. In Völuspá he steers a ship from the east with the host of Muspell; in Snorri he comes with the people of Hel, and he and Heimdall kill each other.

A god without a cult

What scholars make of him

No place is named after Loki, no altar or offering to him is recorded, and his name has no sure etymology. He belongs to the stories, and the stories were written down by Christians more than two centuries after the conversion. Some have seen the Christian devil behind him; Georges Dumézil, in 1948, compared him with Syrdon, the trickster of the Ossetes' Nart legends; Anna Birgitta Rooth, in 1961, looked for a spider of folk tales in him. Carvings show that he was known in the Viking Age: the Danish Snaptun hearthstone shows a face with stitched lips, and the Gosforth Cross in Cumbria appears to show a bound figure and a woman with a bowl.

Mentioned in

God Baldr The shining son of Odin, whose death foretells Ragnarök God Freyja Goddess of love, gold and seiðr, who takes half the slain God Odin One-eyed chief of the gods, lord of war, poetry and the dead God Thor God of thunder, who guards gods and men with his hammer

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