Chapter LXIII: Section VI: Loke’s Punishment

Loke and Balder struggled for the government of the world. Loke gradually grew victorious in his terrible children, while Balder, defenseless and innocent, had nothing but his shining purity with which to oppose Loke’s baseness. Loke’s wickedness reached its culminating point in the death of Balder and in the hag Thok, who with arid tears would wail Balder from Hel.

According to the Younger Edda it would seem that Loke was punished immediately after the death of Balder, but according to the Elder Edda the banquet of Æger seems to have taken place after the death of Balder, and there Loke was present to pour out in words his enmity to the defeated gods. When Æger had received the large kettle, that Thor had brought him from the giant Hymer, he brewed ale for the gods and invited them to a banquet. The gods and elves were gathered there, but Thor was not present. Æger’s servants were praised for their attentiveness and agility. This Loke could not bear to hear, and he killed one of them by name Funfeng. The gods drove him into the woods, but when they had seated themselves at the table and had begun to drink he came back again, and asked Elder, the other servant of Æger, what the gods talked about at the banquet. They talk about their weapons and about their bravery, replied Elder, but neither the gods nor the elves speak well of you. Then, said Loke, I must go into Æger’s hall, to look at the banquet: scolding and evil words bring I to the sons of the gods and mix evil in their ale. Then Loke went into the hall; but when they who were there saw who had entered, they were all silent. Then said Loke to the gods:

Thirsty I hither
To the hall came—
Long way I journeyed—
The gods to ask
Whether one would grant me
A drink of the precious mead.

Why are ye silent, gods!
And sit so stubborn?
Have ye lost your tongues?
Give me a seat
And place at the banquet,
Or turn me away.

BRAGE:

The gods will never
Give you a seat
And place at the banquet:
Well know the gods
To whom they will give
Pleasure at the banquet.

Then Loke begins to abuse the gods, and reminds Odin how they once mixed blood together,—and Vidar must yield him his seat. But before Loke drank he greeted all the gods and goddesses excepting Brage, who occupied the innermost bench. And now Loke pours out his abuse upon all the gods and goddesses, much of which has been given heretofore. His last quarrel is with Sif, the wife of Thor. But then Beyla hears the mountains quake and tremble. It is Thor that is coming; and when he enters the hall he threatens to crush every bone in Loke’s body; and to him Loke finally yields, for he knows that Thor carries out his threats. On going out he heaps curses upon Æger, and hopes that he (Æger) may never more make banquets for the gods, but that flames may play upon his realm and burn him too.

Loke now fled and hid himself in the mountains. There he built him a dwelling with four doors, so that he could see everything that passed around him. Often in the daytime he assumed the likeness of a salmon and concealed himself under the waters of a cascade called Fraananger Force, where he employed himself in divining and circumventing whatever stratagems the gods might have recourse to in order to catch him. One day as he sat in his dwelling he took flax and yarn and worked them into meshes, in the manner that nets have since been made by fishermen. Odin had however, sitting in Hlidskjalf, discovered Loke’s retreat; and the latter, becoming aware that the gods were approaching, threw his net into the fire and ran to conceal himself in the river. When the gods entered Loke’s house, Kvaser, who as the most distinguished among them all for his quickness and penetration, traced out in the hot embers the vestiges of the net which had been burnt, and told Odin that it must be an invention to catch fish. Whereupon they set to work and wove a net after the model they saw imprinted in the ashes. This net, when finished, they threw into the river in which Loke had hid himself. Thor held one end of the net and all the other gods laid hold of the other end, thus jointly drawing it along the stream. Notwithstanding all their precautions the net passed over Loke, who had crept between two stones, and the gods only perceived that some living thing had touched the meshes. They therefore cast their net a second time, hanging so great a weight to it that it everywhere raked the bed of the river. But Loke, perceiving that he had but a short distance to the sea, swam onward and leapt over the net into the force. Tho gods instantly followed him and divided themselves into two bands. Thor, wading along in mid-stream, followed the net, whilst the others dragged it along toward the sea. Loke then perceived that he had only two chances of escape,—either to swim out to the sea, or to leap again over the net. He chose the latter, but as he took a tremendous leap Thor caught him in his hand. Being however extremely slippery, he would have escaped had not Thor held him fast by the tail; and this is the reason why salmon have had their tails ever since so fine and slim.

The gods having thus captured Loke, they dragged him without commiseration into a cavern, wherein they placed three sharp-pointed rocks, boring a hole through each of them. Having also seized Loke’s children, Vale and Nare, or Narfe, they changed the former into a wolf, and in this likeness he tore his brother to pieces and devoured him. The gods then made cords of his intestines, with which they bound Loke on the points of the rocks, one cord passing under his shoulders, another under his loins, and a third under his hams, and afterwards transformed these cords to fetters of iron. Then the giantess Skade took a serpent and suspended it over him in such a manner that the venom should fall into his face, drop by drop. But Sigyn, Loke’s wife, stands by him and receives the drops, as they fall, in a cup, which she empties as often as it is filled. But while she is doing this, venom falls upon Loke, which makes him shriek with horror and twist his body about so violently that the whole earth shakes; and this produces what men call earthquakes. There will Loke lie until Ragnarok.

Here we have Loke in the form of a salmon. Slippery as a salmon, is as common an adage in Norseland as our American: slippery as an eel. Lobe himself makes the net by which he is caught and ruined. This is very proper; sin and crime always bring about their own ruin. The chaining of Loke is one of the grandest myths in the whole mythology. That Loke represents fire in its various forms, becomes clearer with every new fact, every new event in his life. Skade is the cold mountain stream, that pours its venom upon Loke. Sigyn takes much of it away, but some of it will, in spite of her, come in contact with the subterranean fire, and the earth quakes and the geysers spout their scalding water. But who cannot see human life represented in this grand picture? All great convulsions in the history of man are brought about in the same manner, and beside the great forces of revolution stand the pious, gentle and womanly minds who with the cup of religion or with the eloquence of the pure spirit prevent the most violent outbreaks of storm among the nations, and pour their quieting oils upon the disturbed waters. And who does not remember cases at the shrine of the family, where the inevitable consequences of man’s folly and crime produce convulsive crises, misfortunes and misery, which the wife shares, prevents and moderates with her soft hand, gentle tears, and soothing words,—always cheerful and never growing weary. It is woman’s divine work in life, in a quiet manner to bring consolation and comfort, and never to despair.

As the earth and sea in their various manifestations are represented by various divinities, so the fire also presents various forms. It is celestial, united with Odin; it is earthly in the Fenris-wolf, and it is subterranean in the chained Loke. That Loke symbolizes fire, is also illustrated by the fact that the common people in Norway, when they hear the fire crackling, say that Loke is whipping his children. In a wider sense Loke is in one word the evil one, the devil. The common people also know Loke as a divinity of the atmosphere. When the sun draws water, they say that Loke is drinking water. When vapors arise from the earth and float about in the atmosphere, this phenomenon is also ascribed to Loke. When he sows his oats among the grain, he produces a peculiar aërial phenomenon, of which the novelist Blicher speaks in one of his romances, saying that this trembling motion of the air, which the people call Loke’s oats, confuses and blinds the eyes. Nay, truly it confuses and blinds, for we need not take this only in a literal sense. It is that motion which shocks the nerves of man when the soul conceives evil thoughts; it is that nervous concussion which shocks the whole system of the criminal when he goes to commit his foul misdeed.

Having now given a description of Loke,—having painted with words the character of this wily, mischievous, sly and deceitful divinity,—we ask, with Petersen, where is the painter who will present him in living colors on canvas? We want a personal representation of him. We want his limbs, his body and his head. Where is the painter who can give his chin the proper form, his mouth the right shape, paint his dimples with those deep and fine wrinkles when he smiles, and do justice to his nose and upper lip? Who will paint those delicate elevations and depressions of his cheeks, that terrible brilliancy of his eyes, his subtle and crafty forehead, and his hair at once stiff and wavy? Who will paint this immortal youth who yet everywhere reveals his old age, or this old man whose face mocks at everything like a reckless youth? Here is a theme without a model, a theme for a master of the art.