The Aesir held a banquet so sumptuous that ale poured into cups without anyone holding the flask. The servants who had prepared all this received praise, most unfortunately, for them and for envious Loki, as well.
The Aesir held a banquet so sumptuous that ale poured into cups without anyone holding the flask. The servants who had prepared all this received praise, most unfortunately, for them and for envious Loki, as well.
Loki, oh, Loki, Loki, Loki—he just couldn’t keep himself from wicked deeds. By tricking Hod into killing Balder, he had caused everyone to grieve. Yet somehow he wound up at a banquet of the Aesir. After all, Loki and Odin were blood brothers, and, truth be told, many had benefited from Loki’s deceptions in the past.
This particular banquet was more sumptuous than any other; ale poured into guests’ cups without even a servant to hold the flask and the hall was lit by gold rather than flaming tapers. Everyone remarked upon the skills of the two servants who had prepared the banquet: Eldir and Fimafeng. Their work was nothing short of magic. That was enough for Loki; he couldn’t bear hearing anyone else praised. So he killed Fimafeng. Just like that. Right there, on sacred ground.
The Aesir drove Loki out into the forest. But Loki came back to the hall, railing against all of them. And Odin was forced to allow him to stay, because of the oath he had once made to always share his drink with Loki. Loki wasn’t content just to drink, however. He needed to injure, and so he spewed pain from his lips. He said the goddesses were without virtue, they were trolls in disguise—Idunn and Gefjon and Frigg and Freyja. He accused each god, as well, one after the other, of cowardice—Frey and Tyr and Heimdall and even Odin. His ugly words bit like barbs until Thor arrived and threatened to smash Loki with the hammer Mjolnir. Still, Loki spat a final insult before racing away on his long legs into the mountains.
Poisonous snakes are a formidable foe in Norse myths, yet there are but three kinds of snakes in Norway, and only one venomous: the common European adder. Thick and short, it grows longest in Scandinavia: just under three feet. Its head is flat, with a raised snout and large eyes. It can be dark brown or have a dorsal pattern in yellow. A bite can be lethal, especially to children, but it usually causes only pain … immediate, intense, and sometimes enduring for a year.
There he built a house with four doors, so that he could look out in all directions to see if anyone was coming. Loki often shape-shifted into a salmon and passed his day in the waterfalls of Franang, flipping through the spray and worrying about who might be coming after him, what that pursuer might be planning. He ripped flax and rolled it between his palms till it formed long threads and he wove a net as he brooded—rolling, weaving, brooding. He’d been doomed from the start … whose fault was that? Brood, brood.
And then he saw them coming for him.
The Aesir wanted revenge on Loki for causing the death of Balder. So Loki shape-shifted into a fish and swam away while they threw nets and tried to catch him.
Loki dropped his net into the fire and then plunged through the waterfall as a huge salmon.
When the Aesir arrived at the empty hut, the first to enter was the poet Kvasir, who understood things that others didn’t, as all poets do. Kvasir took one look at the smoldering net and declared it a fish net. So this posse of Aesir gods quickly spun flax thread and wove a net just like the one that the fire had destroyed. Then they marched down to the stream. Thor held one end of the net and the rest of the Aesir held the other and they cast it wide. It was a good day for fishing.
The net fell near Loki. But Loki swam quickly between two stones, and the net passed above him and came up empty.
The Aesir simply weighted the net. Then they went upstream and cast it again. It was a good day for fishing.
Loki swam fast ahead of that net. It was gaining on him. The deep sea lay ahead, but that sea held too many dangers. So Loki turned and leaped over the net and went back up the waterfalls.
The Aesir saw him leap, of course. So they went after him a third time, starting right at the waterfalls. Now half the Aesir held one end of the net and the other half held the other end and the strong god Thor waded into the water at the very center of the stream, behind the net, his hands ready, itching to catch the wretched liar Loki. It was a good day for fishing.
Loki swam ahead of the net toward the sea. But he wouldn’t venture out into those depths. No. So he turned and leaped again, over the net, right into Thor’s hands. Thor carried him by his fish tail into a cavern in the mountains. The Aesir took three large flagstones and bore holes into them and set them end to end. Then they captured two of Loki’s sons, Vali and Nari, and they turned Vali into a wolf, who immediately set upon his brother and tore him limb from limb. With Nari’s entrails, the gods bound Loki to the three flagstones, a knot at his shoulders, a knot at his hips, a knot at his knees. Instantly, the entrails became iron. The giantess Skadi caught a serpent and fixed him above Loki’s head, so that venom dripped from the serpent’s jaw onto Loki’s face. Sigyn, one of Loki’s wives, held a basin to catch that poison. But whenever the basin was full to brimming, she had to hurry off to empty it, and in those moments, the poison scalded and ate away at Loki’s eyes and nose and lips. Ah, how he screamed and thrashed. The whole cosmos shook. Every earthquake marked the vengeance of the Aesir.
Thor caught Loki and the gods bound him to a rock in a cave. A serpent hung above him dripping poison. Sigyn, one of Loki’s wives, caught that poison in a bowl. But whenever she left to empty the bowl, the poison burned Loki.
Why did Loki accept this suffering, for surely he did accept it, he must have. He was the shape-shifter supreme. He could have become a flea and slipped out of those knots. But he stayed. Was he just waiting there … waiting for the inevitable, for his chance to play his part in the final conflagration? Or had he somehow given up? Especially after the widening misery he’d caused with Balder’s death, had Loki finally come to revile his own trickery? Whatever his motives might have been in accepting the punishment, Loki’s very punishment shows how vengeance is a scourge of its own. Think of Vali and Nari. We know little of them. They may have been blameless, guilty of nothing more than being Loki’s sons. Guilt by association … is that what the Aesir used to justify the violent undoing of these two men? What a cowardly thing. Perhaps, despite all the wrong motives, Loki was ultimately right in casting aspersions on the characters of the Aesir.
