Elisabeth Keller

17. april 2012

Loki the inbetweener

Outline: Loki is no doubt one of the more controversial characters in the Old Norse pantheon. In this essay I want to investigate his position as an intermediary. I have found that he is constantly located in between two factions, forces, standards, truths and so forth, and am interested in why that might be. I will investigate three different facets of Loki: his position in between everything else I general, his position between men and women in particular, and his indefinable position amongst the elements of fire, water and air. Loki the inbetweener: Loki is one of the most frequently appearing characters in the Old Norse myths, but does not seem to have had his own cult as a god, as we do not know about any shrines, personal or place names that connect to him. In that and more he resembles the Christian devil with whom he has been compared both by name and by function. I do not doubt that Christian ideas have played a major role when the Norse myths were written down, and the likelihood of Loki becoming modeled on Christian myths and becoming more and more vilified in the process seems only logical1, not least because the same thing happened to the Christian devil as well. He is a beautiful young man, but has a foul character2. Many scientists have characterized him as a trickster god, some as a culture bearer; I will argue that he is both and neither. In my opinion he is the element that brings change for good or bad. He is the one in between all else. Ursula Dronke has suggested Lour as an aspect of Loki3, which would make sense if we see Loki as an intermediary between the beginning and the end. In the beginning in the form of Lour,
1

Anne Holtsmark, Norrn mytologi Tru och mytar i vikingtida, Oslo 1990, pp. 146-147, and Wolfgang Golther, Handbuch der Germanischen Mythologie, Leipzig 1895, new edition from Wiesbaden 2004, p. 490 2 Gro Steinsland, Norrn religion, Oslo, 2005, p.229 3 Ursula Dronke, The Poetic Edda: Volume II: Mythological Poems, Oxford 1997, pp. 124-125

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17. april 2012

he gives the lifeblood to the first humans Ask and Embla. In the end he is leading the giants against the gods. His name might support this thesis as it could mean close. The ethymological meaning is however far from undoubtedly determined, so that there are still other possible explanations. Some mean that as a culture bearer he has only contributed with the invention of the fishing net, but if we allow for a wider definition of culture bearing I think Loki is quite formidable at it. He constantly challenges, or forces, the gods to seek out new technologies, new solutions not to get stuck in their ways, and ultimately to be prepared for the final battle. He is not chaos though he seems chaotic in his actions, but he has a goal, which he works towards. He is that which drives the story onward, towards its inevitable conclusion Ragnarok. As the trickster god Loki does break all the rules, he is witty and cunning, funny and insulting, but he is not just a prankster. He has a silver tongue convincing anyone of whatever he likes, but also stirring everyone up against him so he gets his mouth sewn together. He constantly gets both the gods and himself into trouble, both by lying and stealing, but usually it is also he who gets them out of it again often by the same means. He does not do all these things for his amusement alone, but because he has to insure that the course of the world goes onward4, at the same time he also makes sure that everyone is prepared for the time when the world ends. He is a liar, a thief and a murderer, but a friend to both Thor and Odin, and a beloved husband, as the devotion of his ever patient and kind wife Sigyn shows, after he is being punished for the death of Balder. Loki gender bender:

Wolfgang Golther, Handbuch der Germanischen Mythologie, Leipzig 1895, new edition from Wiesbaden 2004, pp. 488-489

Elisabeth Keller

17. april 2012

Another major aspect of Loki as the middle person is his ability to shapeshift. He is the child of one or two jotner,5 but he is counted among the Aesir by becoming the blood brother of Odin himself. Both he and Odin have forbidden knowledge of the female magic called seid. As Brit Solli points out this gives him shaman like abilities and qualities6. Supposedly these abilities have been transferred to him when he mixed his blood with Odins. He is a very virile man but does not feel ashamed by transforming into or disguising himself as women, contrary to the other Gods who consider it perverse and a great shame, as for instance Thor does when he disguises himself as Freya. Loki has even given birth to several children, in addition to fathering a whole lot as well. Lokis disguises and/or shapeshifting are a complete transformation, where he not only starts to look like, but can actually become that which he transforms into. When he becomes a mare to seduce the stallion Svailfari, he later gives birth to a foal Sleipnir. In Lokasenna Odin accuses Loki of having lived underground as a woman for eight years while milking cows and giving birth to children. Also at one time Loki is said to have eaten a womans heart and in that way having become the mother of all witches. His role as a mother is underlined several times not least by way of kennings. As a man who becomes a woman, he becomes difficult to define, by way of the seid magic he keeps himself in this unsteady and intermediate position. A figure difficult to grasp, deliberately staying somewhere in between what is acceptable for most others, Loki is even defying gender boundaries. Loki the element of crime: The third and last aspect of Lokis nature that I want to take a look at is his connection to the elements. He has been suggested as the personification
5 6

a matter not yet resolved see: Gro Steinsland, Norrn religion, Oslo, 2005, p. 228 Brit Solli, Seid, Oslo, 2002, p. 43

Elisabeth Keller

17. april 2012

of three different elements. I believe him to be all and none, as fire and water can only coexist with at least air in between them, considering air to be the smallest possible insertion. The most commonly suggested elemental connection with Loki is that he might be, or might have been at some point, the hearth fire. As he loses a contest against the wildfire, I do not see him as a general god of fire. But he is called flame hair and it is not unlikely Logi is another aspect of him. Logi meaning literally fire is brother of Hler water, and Kari air7. Which interestingly enough are the other two elements he is more or less often connected to. Lopt is another aspect of Loki, and the name connects to the element of air. He is also called sky walker and sky treader, and Hawks child, all aerial in nature and has transformed himself into a fly at one point in order to win a bet against a dwarven smith. He has also been interpreted as a water spirit because of his often but not always water related transformations as a for instance a salmon and a seal. If Lour is in fact an aspect of Loki, one could add him to the water related sphere of Lokis being, as the infusion of the lifegiving blood into the first humans could be a parallel to the life giving water. He has also brought the fishing net to the people, though Anna Birgitta Rooth has suggested this to be one of the things that mark him as a spider god. In my eyes the three elements on their own are too contradictory to be found in one person, as two of them extinguish each. However, with his strong ties to concepts of fertility usually connected to the fourth element earth he might simply be an elemental being all together. Conlusion:

Wolfgang Golther, Handbuch der Germanischen Mythologie, Leipzig 1895, new edition from Wiesbaden 2004, pp. 490

Elisabeth Keller

17. april 2012

As I have shown in this short essay, Loki is not so much a god of many contradictions but of that which is in between two extremes. He is the child of one or two jotner8, but counted among the Aesir by becoming the blood brother of Odin himself and thereby putting himself in a middle position. He is a vile murderer but a beloved husband, a monster and a lover. He is a virile man but not ashamed of becoming a woman. He is a beautiful young man, but a foul character. He has a silver tongue convincing anyone but is also lying scrupulously . He has been suggested as a fire, water and air spirit among many other things. He constantly gets both the gods and himself into trouble, both by lying and stealing, but usually it is also he who gets them out of it again often by the same means, and often with new acquisitions for the other gods. He is neither good nor evil, despite his role at Balders death and in the coming of Ragnarok. He is the element of renewal, of progress in the cosmic plan, ever driving the narrative onwards towards its inevitable conclusion.

Gro Steinsland, Norrn religion, Oslo, 2005, p.228

Elisabeth Keller

17. april 2012

Syllabus in alphabetical order Dronke, Ursula: The Poetic Edda: Volume II: Mythological Poems, Oxford 1997 Golther, Wolfgang: Handbuch der Germanischen Mythologie, Leipzig 1895, new edition from Wiesbaden 2004 Holtsmark, Anne: Norrn mytologi Tru och mytar i vikingtida, Oslo 1990 Solli, Brit: Seid, Oslo 2002 Steinsland, Gro: Norrn religion, Oslo 2005