Loki

Loki struck an otter on the head with a stone and killed it as it sat on a riverbank, eating a salmon with its eyes closed. Odin, Hoenir and Loki carried the otter and salmon with them. They reached a byre and asked its owner, Hreidmar, for lodging for the night. Hreidmar was powerful and skilled in the black arts. When he saw the catch, he seized the three Æsir and demanded payment for the otter, who was his son Ótr. They had to fill the otterskin with gold and cover its outside with red gold.

Loki borrowed Ran’s net and went to Andvara-falls. He cast the net in front of a pike, then jumped into it. The fish said that he was Andvari and that Oin had been his father. Loki demanded treasure as the price of his life. Andvari led him to the rock where he kept his gold and handed over the entire hoard. He had hidden one small ring in his hand. Loki saw it and demanded that as well. Andvari begged to keep it because it would let him increase his wealth again, but Loki took it.

Andvari declared that the ring and the gold would bring death to two brothers and strife between eight princes. He said the treasure would be the bane of everyone who possessed it. Loki welcomed this and promised to ensure that the curse reached the person who received the hoard. He returned to Hreidmar and gave him the gold as ransom for Ótr. Hreidmar accepted it, and the curse became attached to the treasure.

Hreidmar’s sons, Fafner and Regin, demanded their shares as payment for their brother. Hreidmar refused. The brothers agreed to kill their father for the gold. After Hreidmar’s death, Regin demanded half the hoard from Fafner. Fafner refused. He said that he had killed their father to obtain it, then ordered Regin to leave or suffer the same fate. The gold had brought death within the family, as Andvari had foretold.

After Baldr’s death, Loki fled from the gods and hid in the form of a salmon at the waterfall of Franangr. He built a house with four doors so that he could watch for anyone approaching. He spent his days in the waterfall, moving through the spray and fearing discovery.

While he brooded, Loki made a fishing net. He considered how a salmon might escape such a trap. It could swim beneath the net, pass between stones or leap over it. When he saw the gods coming up the mountainside, he threw the net onto the fire. The Æsir found its ashes and wondered why Loki had made and destroyed a net just as they arrived. Kvasir reasoned that Loki had burned it so they could not use it to catch him. Thor understood that Loki must be hiding as a fish in the deep pool below the waterfall.

The gods made a net like Loki’s and dragged it through the pool. Loki swam beneath it and slipped between two flat stones. The net passed over him. Thor had felt something push against it, so Kvasir ordered the gods to try again. This time they tied heavy stones to the lower edge, preventing anything from swimming underneath. Loki could not change into another form, and the weighted net left him fewer ways to escape.

The Æsir dragged the net upstream towards the waterfall while Loki swam ahead of it towards the sea. He feared the deep water and turned back. He leaped over the net and returned upstream. The gods began again, with two groups holding the ends and Thor wading in the centre. Loki swam towards the sea once more, then turned and leaped over the net. Thor caught him in mid-air and held him fast.

Loki cut off Sif’s golden hair. Thor threatened to break every bone in his body unless he repaired the damage. Loki travelled to Svartalfheim, where the dwarfs kept their workshops, and asked the sons of Ívaldi to make new hair for Sif. They forged the golden hair, Odin’s spear Gungnir and Frey’s ship Skidbladnir. The ship could sail over land and sea and could be folded small enough to carry in a pouch.

Loki admired the treasures, then challenged the dwarf Brokk. He wagered his head that Brokk’s brother could not make three works equal to those made by the sons of Ívaldi. Brokk accepted. In the forge, his brother put a pig hide into the fire and ordered Brokk to work the bellows without stopping. A fly bit Brokk’s arm, but he continued until the forge produced Gullinbursti, a golden-bristled boar. It could travel through air and water faster than any horse, and its bristles gave light in darkness.

The second work was the ring Draupnir. For the third, the brother placed metal in the forge and again told Brokk not to stop the bellows. Loki changed into a fly and bit him repeatedly. Brokk endured the bites, but the last one made him pause briefly. The result was Mjolnir, Thor’s hammer. It would always return to Thor’s hand after being thrown and could be made small enough to hide in his clothing. Its handle was too short because of Loki’s interference.

The gods judged the treasures in Asgard. They chose Mjolnir as the finest and as the greatest protection against the frost giants. Brokk had therefore won the wager. Loki tried to ransom his head, then fled using shoes that carried him through the air and over the sea. Thor seized him for Brokk. Loki argued that Brokk had won his head, but not his neck, when the dwarf prepared to cut it off.

Skaði stopped before the seated gods and exclaimed over the feet she had chosen. She believed that they belonged to Balder because nothing about him could be ugly. When the curtain was lifted, she saw that the feet belonged to Njord, god of chariots and father of Frey and Freya. She married him, as agreed in the settlement made after the death of her father, Þjazi.

At the wedding feast, Skaði remained deeply sorrowful. Thor nudged Loki and ordered him to make her laugh, saying that the trouble was Loki’s fault. Loki went outside to the animal pens and returned with an irritated billy goat. He tied one end of a strong rope around the goat’s beard and the other around his own private parts. Then he pulled. The goat pulled back, and Loki screamed as he yanked the rope.

The rope snapped. Loki flew through the air, clutching himself, and landed in Skaði’s lap. He lay there whimpering and broken. Skaði laughed loudly and for a long time. Tears came to her eyes, and she reached out to squeeze Njord’s hand for the first time. Loki climbed down and staggered away while the gods and goddesses laughed at him.

The laughter fulfilled Skaði’s demand, so she could not withdraw from the agreement. Odin then added another gift. He took two wet marbles from his pouch. Skaði recognised them as her father’s eyes. Odin threw them into the sky, where they remained as twin stars. Njord loved his shipyard, while Skaði loved her snowy mountains. The two could not find a home that suited them both.

Loki had been seized and taken into a cave by the gods. They set up three great stones and brought in his sons, Váli and Narfi. Sigyn, their mother, was there as well. Loki asked what was happening, but the gods gave him no answer. When he saw his family, he understood their purpose and begged the gods not to harm them. They replied that the sons were Loki’s and that they had done nothing to prevent his punishment.

Kvasir reminded the gods that Loki was their blood brother and that oaths prevented them from killing him. No such oaths bound them to Loki’s sons. He spoke words of change and power to Váli. The boy’s human form fell away, and a wolf took its place. Foam gathered around its muzzle. The wolf’s reason faded from its yellow eyes, replaced by hunger, anger and madness.

The wolf looked at the gods, at Sigyn and then at Narfi. It growled and raised its hackles. Narfi stepped back, but the wolf sprang upon him. He showed courage and did not scream as the creature that had been his brother tore him apart. His entrails spilled across the floor of the cave. The wolf howled through bloodstained jaws.

The gods then used Narfi’s entrails to bind Loki. They laid him over the three stones, with one beneath his shoulders, one beneath his loins and one beneath his knees. Váli, changed into a wolf, had killed Narfi, and Narfi’s entrails became the material of Loki’s bonds.

The firmaments shuddered. Trees swayed until their roots gave way, boulders fell from the mountains and every chain burst apart. Garm, Hel’s hound, broke free. Fenrir escaped from his chains on the island of Lyngvi in Lake Amsvartnir. Loki also slipped free from the mountain cavern where he had been bound with the entrails of his son Nari, then hopped away. Three cocks crowed: Gullinkambi in Valhalla, Fjalar in the giants’ bird-wood and a third in Hel, warning the dead.

Jormungand left the sea and rolled across the earth towards Vigrid, while Fenrir ran beside him. The frost giants crowded into a ship. Loki gathered the dead from Hel and loaded them into Naglfar, a vessel made from the fingernails and toenails of dead men. With Loki at its helm, the ship carried the hostile forces towards the battlefield. The fire giants followed Surt. Giants of fire and frost, along with trolls and underground beings, hastened to Ragnarök.

When the battle was joined, Loki’s forces fought against the gods. At last, only Loki among his legions was still standing. Heimdall, watcher of the bridge and gatekeeper of the gods, also remained alive. Holding his sword Hofud, wet with blood, he crossed Vigrid towards Loki. They walked over corpses and through blood and flames. Loki taunted Heimdall for waking the gods too late and mocked him as the watchman with nine mothers. He recalled his time bound beneath the ground, while serpent venom dripped into his face and Sigyn tried to catch it in a bowl.

Loki and Heimdall fought, slashing, stabbing and hacking at each other. Both fell beside the other, mortally wounded. Loki whispered, "It is done. I won." Heimdall answered that he could see further. He spoke of Vidar killing Fenrir and surviving with Vali. He spoke of Magni and Modi taking Mjollnir from Thor’s dead hand. Loki replied that the world was burning, Midgard was destroyed and the mortals were dead. Heimdall said he could see to the world-tree. Surt’s fire could not touch it, and two people had hidden there. Then Heimdall died, still grinning through blood-flecked golden teeth.

Loki drove his hands through the roasted meat as fast as he could. He sat at one end of a long wooden trough, while Logi, a servant of Útgarða-Loki, began at the other. The trough held geese, oxen, sheep, goats, rabbits and deer. The two contestants moved towards the centre, eating as quickly as possible. Loki stripped the flesh from the bones. Logi consumed the flesh, the bones and the wooden trough itself. Everyone agreed that Loki had lost the wager.

The contest took place in Útgarðr, after Thor and his companions had entered the giant king’s great hall. Útgarða-Loki had asked whether any of them possessed a skill beyond that of others. Loki had answered that he could eat faster than anyone. He had made the claim without boasting, and accepted the challenge when Útgarða-Loki offered his servant Logi as an opponent.

Útgarða-Loki then asked Thialfi what feat he could attempt. Thialfi identified himself as Thor’s bondservant and said that he would race anyone the king chose. Útgarða-Loki took them to a racecourse across the flat plain and summoned a young man named Huge. In the first heat, Huge ran so far ahead that he reached the turning point and met Thialfi on his return.

Later, Útgarða-Loki disclosed the nature of the contests. Loki had competed against wild fire. Thialfi had raced against the giant’s own thoughts. The eating contest had therefore been decided before Logi consumed the trough.