Loki the mischief behind.., p.1
Loki—The Mischief Behind the Legend, page 1
Loki: The Mischief Behind the Legend
NORSE MYTHS FROM THE CHILDREN OF ODIN
PADRAIC COLUM
Foreword by
PETER DAVID
Edited by
AMY MICHELLE CARPENTER
Loki: The Mischief Behind the Legend by Padraic Colum
Originally published in 1920 as part of The Children of Odin: The Book of Northern Myths. This work is in the public domain.
This new edition edited by Amy Michelle Carpenter
Foreword copyright © 2022 by Peter David
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the express written permission of the copyright holder, except where permitted by law. This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination, or, if real, used fictitiously.
The ebook edition of this book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. The ebook may not be re-sold or given away. If you would like to share the ebook edition with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
EBook ISBN: 978-1-68057-354-1
Trade Paperback ISBN: 978-1-68057-353-4
Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-68057-355-8
Cover design by Elona Bezooshko
Cover artwork image by Elona Bezooshko | Psych Digital Ink and Motion
Published by WordFire Press, LLC
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Kevin J. Anderson & Rebecca Moesta, Publishers
WordFire Press Edition 2022
Printed in the USA
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Contents
Foreword
Peter David
I. The Dwellers in Asgard
Far Away and Long Ago
The Building of The Wall
Iduna and Her Apples: How Loki Put the Gods in Danger
Sif’s Golden Hair: How Loki Wrought Mischief in Asgard
How Brock Brought Judgement on Loki
II. Thor And Loki And The Giants
Thor And Loki in The Giants’ City
How Thor and Loki Befooled Thrum the Giant
Aegir’s Feast: How Thor Triumphed
The Dwarf’s Hoard, and the Curse That It Brought
III. The Witch’s Heart
Foreboding in Asgard
Loki the Betrayer
Loki Against The Aesir
The Children of Loki
Baldur’s Doom
Loki’s Punishment
The Twilight of the Gods
Publisher’s Note
About the Author
About The Editor
WordFire Classics
Foreword
PETER DAVID
Who was Loki?
That’s a very good question, and the answer is not an easy one because his background comes from a variety of sources. He is most certainly not entirely of Asgardian blood, his father either being a giant (ancient Norse legends) or a frost giant (Marvel Comics.). Stan Lee pegged him as simply the god of evil, the opposite number of his adopted brother, Thor, determined to do horrible things because, well, everyone knew he was the god of evil, so what point was there in disputing it?
But the truth (if such a word can be used to describe a legendary figure) is a bit more complicated than that. There’s no denying that in his original incarnation, Loki was a trickster god, a personality so powerful and entertaining that pretty much every mythos, every religion, has one in their mix. Native Americans call him Coyote. Egyptians called him Set, the Celts called him Puck. In modern time, Bugs Bunny fits the bill, although he actually never originates trouble. He just simply strikes back at someone who gives him grief. Hell, my grandmother used the term kochleffel: Literally a soup spoon, but more broadly, someone who loves to stir up trouble.
Loki is an inveterate kochleffel, always causing problems. Whether he is cutting off Sif’s hair (an act which was alluded to in the “Loki” miniseries streaming on Disney plus) or arranging matters where the ultra-manly Thor has to dress in drag, pretending to be an Asgardian maiden in order to retrieve his beloved hammer, Mjolnir, Loki loves making trouble. He is referred to as sometimes good, sometimes evil, and notoriously difficult to pin down. Sometimes he is an ally, sometimes he is making things happen because, well, he’s bored with what he views as the pretentious, vain-glorious oafs who reign over Asgard and sees no harm in trying to take them down a peg or two. He probably figures that it serves them right, that their pretentiousness and beliefs that they are far superior to everyone almost requires some lessons in humbleness to be visited upon them, and who’s to say he isn’t right.
The real problems come to the fore, however, when Loki—for no damned good reason whatsoever—decides to eat the heart of a deceased witch, Gulveig, whose entire body was consumed by her funeral pyre with the exception of her heart. You’d think that if even fire wants nothing to do with a body part, that would be enough of a warning to steer clear of it. But no, Loki—why we’ve no idea—takes it upon himself to consume the literally damned thing, and it is from that point on that his nature goes due south. No longer is he merely a trickster. The now thoroughly evil demigod decides to start producing children with a witch named Angerboda. Anyone who has “anger” in their name simply can’t be any good, and sure enough, he produces three children who are decidedly outside of the norm: the Fenrir (sometimes Fenris) wolf, the beast that would be called the Midgard serpent, and Hela, the half-human/half-corpse who would become known as the queen of death. He also engineered the death of Baldur the Beloved, an action for which he winds up being tied down in a cave with a serpent hanging over his head, dripping venom onto him. His surprisingly faithful wife, Sigyn, who apparently forgives him for cheating on her with a witch, remains to catch the venom in a cup. But every time she empties it out, the poison burns him, and his struggles cause earthquakes. (Which is really as good an explanation as any, one supposes.). Eventually he is able to slip his bonds and join in the fun of Ragnarok, where his enemies are now brought down for all time.
There is no denying his versatility as a character, much of which has been shaped for modern audiences by the character as he is presented in Marvel films, portrayed by Tom Hiddleston. This Loki has become so popular that when Hiddleston appeared in full costume and makeup at the San Diego Comic Con, the several thousand people in the audience went out of their minds with joy. He could have ordered them to overrun the DC booth and they’d likely have done it. No matter how many times the character gets killed off, he keeps coming back. Even Thanos couldn’t dispose of him permanently, and he had the damned Infinity Gauntlet.
The bottom line is that we live in a time where we see our leaders full of themselves, sitting high on thrones built of their own pretensions, and we love the idea of taking them down a few levels. Seeing them brought down to the kind of status that we ourselves have to endure on a daily basis. We know when we watch a presidential debate that if they were asked how much a gallon of milk costs, they would stand there with stupid (well, stupider) expressions on their faces and have no response. Imagine Loki moderating, or even participating in, a presidential debate. Imagine him writing Op-Ed pieces. Imagine him on the Supreme Court. The mind boggles with possibilities as to what sort of damage a trickster god could accomplish in our world, and we would all be the better for it.
Indeed, the film Loki is tremendously sympathetic. He believes himself to be full Asgardian, only discovering halfway through that he is a foundling, the son of frost giants. Until that time he is a faithful son and brother; after that, he wants revenge, and who can blame him? He’s been lied to his entire life, and that’s a pretty long existence to withhold the truth from him. In these times when those in charge lord it over us with the same absence of care that the Aesir lorded it over humanity, it seems that finally the world has caught up with Loki.
Gods help us all.
—Peter David
Long Island, New York
October 2021
Part One
The Dwellers in Asgard
Far Away and Long Ago
Once there was another Sun and another Moon; a different Sun and a different Moon from the ones we see now. Sol was the name of that Sun and Mani was the name of that Moon. But always behind Sol and Mani wolves went, a wolf behind each. The wolves caught on them at last and they devoured Sol and Mani. And then the world was in darkness and cold.
In those times the Gods lived, Odin and Thor, Hödur and Baldur, Tyr and Heimdall, Vidar and Vali, as well as Loki, the doer of good and the doer of evil. And the beautiful Goddesses were living then, Frigga, Freya, Nanna, Iduna, and Sif. But in the days when the Sun and Moon were destroyed the Gods were destroyed too—all the Gods except Baldur who had died before that time, Vidar and Vali, the sons of Odin, and Modi and Magni, the sons of Thor.
At that time, too, there were men and women in the world. But before the Sun and the Moon were devoured and before the Gods were destroyed, terrible things happened in the world. Snow fell on the four corners of the earth and kept on falling for three seasons. Winds came and blew everything away. And the people of the world who had lived on in spite of the
Also there was another earth at that time, an earth green and beautiful. But the terrible winds that blew leveled down forests and hills and dwellings. Then fire came and burnt the earth. There was darkness, for the Sun and the Moon were devoured. The Gods had met with their doom. And the time in which all these things happened was called Ragnarök, the Twilight of the Gods.
Then a new Sun and a new Moon appeared and went travelling through the heavens; they were more lovely than Sol and Mani, and no wolves followed behind them in chase. The earth became green and beautiful again, and in a deep forest that the fire had not burnt a woman and a man wakened up. They had been hidden there by Odin and left to sleep during Ragnarök, the Twilight of the Gods.
Lif was the woman's name, and Lifthrasir was the man's. They moved through the world, and their children and their children's children made people for the new earth. And of the Gods were left Vidar and Vali, the sons of Odin, and Modi and Magni, the sons of Thor; on the new earth Vidar and Vali found tablets that the older Gods had written on and had left there for them, tablets telling of all that had happened before Ragnarök, the Twilight of the Gods.
And the people who lived after Ragnarök, the Twilight of the Gods, were not troubled, as the people in the older days were troubled, by the terrible beings who had brought destruction upon the world and upon men and women, and who from the beginning had waged war upon the Gods.
The Building of The Wall
Always there had been war between the Giants and the Gods—between the Giants who would have destroyed the world and the race of men, and the Gods who would have protected the race of men and would have made the world more beautiful.
There are many stories to be told about the Gods, but the first one that should be told to you is the one about the building of their City.
The Gods had made their way up to the top of a high mountain and there they decided to build a great City for themselves that the Giants could never overthrow. The City they would call “Asgard,” which means the Place of the Gods. They would build it on a beautiful plain that was on the top of that high mountain. And they wanted to raise round their City the highest and strongest wall that had ever been built.
Now one day when they were beginning to build their halls and their palaces a strange being came to them. Odin, the Father of the Gods, went and spoke to him. “What dost thou want on the Mountain of the Gods?” he asked the Stranger.
“I know what is in the mind of the Gods,” the Stranger said. “They would build a City here. I cannot build palaces, but I can build great walls that can never be overthrown. Let me build the wall round your City.”
“How long will it take you to build a wall that will go round our City?” said the Father of the Gods.
“A year, O Odin,” said the Stranger.
Now Odin knew that if a great wall could be built around it the Gods would not have to spend all their time defending their City, Asgard, from the Giants, and he knew that if Asgard were protected, he himself could go amongst men and teach them and help them. He thought that no payment the Stranger could ask would be too much for the building of that wall.
That day the Stranger came to the Council of the Gods, and he swore that in a year he would have the great wall built. Then Odin made oath that the Gods would give him what he asked in payment if the wall was finished to the last stone in a year from that day.
The Stranger went away and came back on the morrow. It was the first day of Summer when he started work. He brought no one to help him except a great horse.
Now the Gods thought that this horse would do no more than drag blocks of stone for the building of the wall. But the horse did more than this. He set the stones in their places and mortared them together. And day and night and by light and dark the horse worked, and soon a great wall was rising round the palaces that the Gods themselves were building.
“What reward will the Stranger ask for the work he is doing for us?” the Gods asked one another.
Odin went to the Stranger. “We marvel at the work you and your horse are doing for us,” he said. “No one can doubt that the great wall of Asgard will be built up by the first day of Summer. What reward do you claim? We would have it ready for you.”
The Stranger turned from the work he was doing, leaving the great horse to pile up the blocks of stone. “O Father of the Gods,” he said, “O Odin, the reward I shall ask for my work is the Sun and the Moon, and Freya, who watches over the flowers and grasses, for my wife.”
Now when Odin heard this he was terribly angered, for the price the Stranger asked for his work was beyond all prices. He went amongst the other Gods who were then building their shining palaces within the great wall and he told them what reward the Stranger had asked. The Gods said, “Without the Sun and the Moon the world will wither away.” And the Goddesses said, “Without Freya all will be gloom in Asgard.”
They would have let the wall remain unbuilt rather than let the Stranger have the reward he claimed for building it. But one who was in the company of the Gods spoke. He was Loki, a being who only half belonged to the Gods; his father was the Wind Giant. “Let the Stranger build the wall round Asgard,” Loki said, “and I will find a way to make him give up the hard bargain he has made with the Gods. Go to him and tell him that the wall must be finished by the first day of Summer, and that if it is not finished to the last stone on that day the price he asks will not be given to him.”
The Gods went to the Stranger and they told him that if the last stone was not laid on the wall on the first day of the Summer not Sol or Mani, the Sun and the Moon, nor Freya would be given him. And now they knew that the Stranger was one of the Giants.
The Giant and his great horse piled up the wall more quickly than before. At night, while the Giant slept, the horse worked on and on, hauling up stones and laying them on the wall with his great forefeet. And day by day the wall around Asgard grew higher and higher.
But the Gods had no joy in seeing that great wall rising higher and higher around their palaces. The Giant and his horse would finish the work by the first day of Summer, and then he would take the Sun and the Moon, Sol and Mani, and Freya away with him.
But Loki was not disturbed. He kept telling the Gods that he would find a way to prevent him from finishing his work, and thus he would make the Giant forfeit the terrible price he had led Odin to promise him.
It was three days to Summer time. All the wall was finished except the gateway. Over the gateway a stone was still to be placed. And the Giant, before he went to sleep, bade his horse haul up a great block of stone so that they might put it above the gateway in the morning, and so finish the work two full days before Summer.
It happened to be a beautiful moonlit night. Svadilfare, the Giant's great horse, was hauling the largest stone he ever hauled when he saw a little mare come galloping toward him. The great horse had never seen so pretty a little mare and he looked at her with surprise.
“Svadilfare, slave,” said the little mare to him and went frisking past.
Svadilfare put down the stone he was hauling and called to the little mare. She came back to him. “Why do you call me 'Svadilfare, slave'?” said the great horse.
“Because you have to work night and day for your master,” said the little mare. “He keeps you working, working, working, and never lets you enjoy yourself. You dare not leave that stone down and come and play with me.”
“Who told you I dare not do it?” said Svadilfare.
